Plant Language 101 Lesson Four

I'm Hungry. Give me something to eat!

Practice Session: Looking for the color of the plants in the garden. Like we said, Plants that are hungry take on a pale look. Drive around the neighborhood. Stop your car once in awhile and walk the block. Go to areas where folks keep good gardens, go to areas where you can tell that gardening is not there number one priority. Start looking at the color and the growth of the plants that you see. In the magazine you saw some impatiens that were really hungry. Very light almost yellow leaves, lots of leaves really yellow and falling off. The ability to see this is one of pure practice. Look for plants that have smaller leaves, growth that looks stressed and dry looking. It's a difficult look to put into words but quite easy to see once you start watching.
Lots of our customers buy our liquid fertilizer that we use in the nursery. They go home and use it. Next time they enthuse over the fact that everything in the garden turned green. Wow! It's really good fertilizer but chances are they haven't put any food into the ground for ages.
The other fun thing that happens in the gardens when I am trouble shooting for a customer is when I ask them how long it has been since they fed their plants. I get a blank look of incredulity. Sometimes a long silence and then...You mean we have to fertilizer our plants? Seriously many people never ever consider doing that. Are you one of them? If so, get out there and learn how to feed those poor starving plants. How healthy and happy do you think you would be if you only got one meal every month or so?
Practice Take a flower bed or a section of lawn. Feed part of it and leave the other part alone. Watch for the difference.
Hint. When to fertilize? Usually every two weeks in the main growing season for plants that are in baskets, containers or other fast growing blooming plants. Shrubs and trees need feeding less often. In the spring when everything comes to life is a great time to feed and add some extra iron.
Certain plants need to be fed at different times of the year.
PracticeThis takes a bit more work but is a good thing to do. Make a list of the plants in your garden and spend the time looking each one up in Sunset Western Garden Book or Pat Welsh's Southern California Gardening by the Month. Next to each plant make a note if it needs special feeding at any different time of year.
What kind of fertilizer? Organic or not? Which is better? Both are good. Organic fertilizers usually help to build up the soil, are fairly low in nitrogen so it takes longer for you to see the effects. Chemical fertilizers give you more choices and usually act faster The plant makes all fertilizers into chemicals in order to use them. You can use both if you like. I don't mind. The most important thing is to find a fertilizer that is easy to use and then get used to using it.
My final rules for feeding:

Always water your plants before you feed. Feeding a dry plant is just like you going to a party and having 2 or 3 martinis on an empty stomach. The plant takes it all in too fast and sometimes you see a Big Hangover. What happens is that the concentration burns the roots. The leaves all wilt and fall off . Sometimes you kill it but many times the plant will recover and grow again. If you know you have put on too much fertilizer you can scrape off anything possible and leach through and out the back door all that excess food. You can only do this if you know you made an error right away.
Always measure accurately. Less is better than more.
If the directions call for 2 tablespoons to a gallon of water...6 tablespoons will not make your plant grow faster. I don't know why but men are the main culprits when it comes to this. I guess it is because women know that if a recipe for a cake calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder, using 6 will not work. Sorry, Men. You are the guilty ones!
Never fertilize plants right when you are transplanting them.I am not talking about mixing dry bone meal or fertilizer in with the soil when you plant a tree or shrub. Small amounts work just fine there. Don't let the granules come in touch with the bare roots. I am talking about that classic mistake that we all make. You buy some bedding plants, you dig some pansies or begonias or plant up some pretty pots. We always tell you to water them in. Yes, you must do that.
Right about then this weird feeling kicks in that makes us want to make these pretty plants grow faster. What makes plants grow? Why fertilizer, of course. So we mix up some fertilizer and put it on those brand newly transplanted plants.. Let's make it plenty strong, so they'll grow even faster. The next day the plants are wilting and you realize what you did. ooops!
Fertilizer does absolutely no good sitting on the shelf. If you know in your heart that you are not going to take the time to fertilize your plants every two weeks or what ever we are telling you to do. Be good to yourself and your plants and use some of those wonderful slow release fertilizer granules. I call them 'Fertilizer Insurance'. One application can last for 4 or more months. Every time your plant is watered it gets a little fertilizer. Now that's the easy way!!

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