damaged roots?

[HelloMist]

Hi, some of my plants weren't doing well for the second year in a row, so I moved them to try and get more sun or space away from other plants. They are penstemon (leafy but no flowers, had pruned the older one last year) and a peony.

I now see I've probably damaged their roots. 😔 The stems and leaves are drooping and wilting. I've been watering but no improvement after 5 days or so. Is there any hope? Is there something I could do? Cut away some of the growth, feed?

In future is the best way to dig them up very gently (or leave them alone!) and soak the roots well before replanting? Thank you for any help. :)

peonies really don’t like being moved. It may not survive.

You need to cut the stems after moving though. They need the energy to go to the roots rather than try to produce flowers. Plants should really be moved in early spring or autumn before/after the growing season & producing flowers.

Penstemon might be okay but cut the stems back on both plants and accept you probably won’t see flowers until next year

@LetMeInYourWindow thank you for the advice. I will be more careful timing wise in future. I should've had more patience and might have gone on to have flowers this year. The peony was only small still (planted last autumn I think).

At least most of my other plants are doing better! I will try to focus on those but lesson learned for next year. I'm not new to gardening but still lacking experience and find a lot of it hit and miss.

Reason for cutting the stems is that the inevitable damage to roots means there’s less water being taken into the plant, so you reduce the top growth so less water is needed