A story of two lilacs

[Kittyfang]

About a month ago, my mother in law and I grabbed our shovels and got some baby lilacs from a plant that had been stuck my lightning.

I let mine soak in a bucket of water over night and planted them in my garden. The plant was looking good! but the first night was kinda cold. the next morning, the plant was a little droopy, so I watered it and it got somewhat better. A month later, it's still green... but going on yellow. The weather has been really hot lately and the plant is in full sun. Now the top leaves are very droopy and I don't know what to do. (My mother is law's plant died, but it because she never watered it, I water mine every day, about a glass full of water.)

Can anyone get their magic crystal ball out and tell me the future of my plant... or tell me if there is anything I could do? I put some rotted manure on top of the soil some days ago... but it was more out of desperation.

[gardeningmom]

Yellow usually means too much water but if has been that hot and the plant is in full sun I say stress. I would try and shade it somehow. If it is small enough try making a sort of lean-too out of some plant landscaping fabric to keep some sun off of it!

[ok_nurse]

It is a trick getting them established well though.
I transplanted about fifteen baby lilacs in full sun about six weeks ago. I lost about 25% of them but several are getting new growth at the soil line. I have terrible clay soil so this is what I did to get mine to take-maybe you can figure out what you could do differently, then I'll tell you what I think-but I may be wrong.
I had my son rototill the ground about twelve inches deep. Then I mixed several bags of cedar mulch. (The 100 degree heat causes the hard mulch to decompose quite quickly.) Then I went and dug my lilac babies, brought them home and planted them deep enough that I knew they wouldn't dislodge with watering. Watered them once a day for the first week. Then every other day for a couple weeks and now every third to fourth day. They took before it got scorching hot and are all healthy (except the 1/4 I lost in the first week.)
I suspect you may be watering them too much. A frequent shallow watering is more dangerous in heat than a deep watering with less frequency. If it's yellowing, I'd back off on the water. You've got nothing to lose-it sounds like its dying anyway. Lilacs like loose, light soil when they are establishing. The taller the baby, the better its chance of surviving-but I've gotten little white ones in the mail and they are doing great! The little ones are the ones that will lose their leaves and look dead, but then come back from the root. I didn't look at which zone you are in. Many times, when I was in zone 5, I grew lilacs in shade. If the babies were used to shade and you put them in full sun-that is a problem-very stressful on a plant. But if they were in sun and you put them again in sun-shouldn't be a problem. If you did take them from a shady place to full sun-I suspect it would've been dead already-but you should try to shade it like GardeningMom said. Don't transplant it again or it will die.
Hope this helps.

[zuzu's petals]

Yellow usually means too much water but if has been that hot and the plant is in full sun I say stress. I would try and shade it somehow. If it is small enough try making a sort of lean-too out of some plant landscaping fabric to keep some sun off of it!

I'm with G'mom, try givein' that puppy a bit of shade.
And don't get in a hurry to give it any fertilizer,
you don't want to encourage too much top growth until the root mass has had time to establish itself.

**PS** I was writing this as ok_nurse was posting, it looks like she also has some great experience to share.

[Kittyfang]

Thank you for your comments! I would have never taught that over watering was the problem. I have been watering it every day... so it makes sense. I will stop for a couple of days and see how it goes. I do hope it makes it.

I will also try to give it some shade and see if it helps. Hopefully, it's possible to save a plant from near death? I sure hope so!