By Oaktree16
United Kingdom 
I forgot to water my viburnum tinus in a pot, and even though I did so a few weeks ago, and have kept it up, the leaves are going dry and brown and it looks like it is dying. As it was a present I feel awful. Looking at the other q's and a's on here, wonder if pruning it back hard would help. I am the opposite of green fingered, but love plants and being in the garden. Thankyou for any help. Don't know how to add a photo. Sorry.
20 May, 2011
Answers
Yes good advice from louise, but i do like to break the rules in gardening, and have a viburnham tinus in an old oil drum its been there for ten years and i feed with chicken pellets in spring and spray it with bugclear for viburnham beetle and make sure it gets plenty of water and it seems to do ok, but to be honest not looking good at the moment, it flowered late this year and was prolific but just waiting for the new growth to come through, and as louise says they do respond well to pruning, julien.
20 May, 2011
Stick it in a bucket of water for 12 hours before you do plant it.
20 May, 2011
I would like to thank you all who answered. I take heart from what you say that I haven't killed it off, and will be putting it in the garden. Thanks to you Louise. It was given to me in a pot and have left it there, but even though I liked to keep it in that, I see the merit in planting it out. To Julien, your container sounds a lot bigger than mine, good idea. To Drc726, I have put it in a bigger plastic bucket type thing that has water in it, so have started along the right road inadvertantly. So pleased I found this site. I love gardening, but I do seem to be the kiss of death to plants. Maybe this site will put an end to that.
20 May, 2011
Welcome to Goy Oaktree gardening is all about trial and error some grow for you some dont! This is a friendly site which I do hope you enjoy it.
20 May, 2011
For starters Viburnum tinus is NOT a plant you keep in a pot, it's a large shrub that needs to be planted out.
By keeping it in a pot you'll restrict its growth far too much and it's unlikely to be happy and thrive, let it loose and plant it out asap.
The leaves going dry and brown sounds like there's just not enough moisture at the roots on a permanent basis.
If it's just the leaves that are brown you could try pruning it back a bit but AFTER you've pplanted it out.
Dig a hole twice the size of the rootball and incorporate a lot of composted manure into the soil then you place it in the hole.
Then give it a good soaking once a week for the next few months and watch it come alive again.
20 May, 2011