Name that plant, part 2

[kake]

Further to my previous post, I have another batch of plants that I hope someone will be able to help me identify.

[IMAGE: A plant (no flowers) in a pot with long green leaves. Some of the leaves towards the top are a pale reddish colour, while others are yellowed and dead at the ends. There is moss growing on the stones that have been used to cover the soil in the pot.]

Bonus questions! Should I worry about the reddish leaves? Should I take the yellowing ones off? Are the reddish ones in fact on their way to becoming yellow ones? Should I get rid of the moss, or will the plant happily coexist with it?

[IMAGE: A sparsely-leaved plant growing in a pot and climbing up a trellis. The soil in the pot had been covered with flat stones. There is A TRAIN A TRAIN A TRAIN YAY A TRAIN in the background beyond the fence.]

I also have a closeup of the leaves.

[IMAGE: A shrubby sort of plant in a brown pot on some decking. Many of the leaves seem to be dead.]

Are the dead bits normal for this time of year? Should I take them off or just leave them?

[IMAGE: A plant in a blue pot with pinkish purplish flowers.]

Is this another dianthus?

Does anyone recognise any of these? As previously mentioned, I live in London, UK, if that helps. I would really appreciate any advice!

Comments

[chalcopyrite]

Don't worry about a few half-dead leaves; you can take them off in the spring, if they're still clinging on after the winter.

Plant feeding: I realised wait, it's August already (and how did that happen???), so you don't want to feed them now -- you don't want plants to have tender new growth going in to the winter, and a slow-release feed would be wasted in winter while the plant is dormant.

So! A thing you could do first, as feuer_flammenlos said, is check what the soil is like under those stones. If it's grey, hard, sandy, rocky -- the honeysuckle would probably benefit from being taken out of the pot, having as much of the old soil as (easily) possible removed/shaken gently out of the roots, and being re-planted in new compost. That is IF it is easy enough to wrangle the plant. If not, you can dig out the top couple inches of soil (as much as you can without taking the plant out of the pot, and without damaging roots too much), and replacing those with new compost. Compost as sold has plant food in it; that lasts about 6 months or so.

Come spring, when things start growing again, you can add some slow-release plant food to the top layer of soil. J. Arthur Bower is a good reliable brand, or really any would do; what you want is a slow-release fertiliser for containers or pots (it will have less nitrogen; you don't want plants in pots to be growing vigorously). A garden centre or a home-improvement store like B&Q ought to be able to help you. It doesn't take much, and you just sort of mix it a little into the top of the soil.

The big problem for container plants is water; I don't know if you've been having the dry weather we've been getting, but if there isn't a good soaking rain, plants need more water than you'd ever think. One way to make sure the roots get water, rather than it just running off the top, is to take a 2l water/soda bottle, cut the bottom off and make some slits around the top, then (with the cap on) bury it maybe halfway in the pot, open end up. Fill that with water, and it'll leach out slowly, down where the roots can get it.

One more thing is, if you can get a peep at the bottom of the container and there are lots of roots coming out the bottom drainage holes, the plant is potbound and needs a larger pot. Alas, because the big pots start getting pricey.

I hope these do well for you! Don't beat yourself up if there are some setbacks!

[kake]

We've had some rain, but less so in the past week. I plan to buy a moisture meter at some point because I'm having trouble working out whether I'm underwatering or overwatering things.

The soil in the honeysuckle pot looks awful! It's grey and stony and absolutely chock-full of tiny roots. There aren't any roots coming out of the drainage holes though.

[chalcopyrite]

grey and stony and absolutely chock-full of tiny roots

Yuck! Sounds like repotting the honeysuckle is a good place to start, then. It'll do much better in soil with more anything in it!