"Pam - gardengal" wrote in message
news:Bl5Wb.140001$U%5.644904@attbi_s03...

"Brian" wrote in message
m...
I planted a 12 foot red sunset maple last August and am
considering
fertilizing it this Spring. I've read that one should wait
at least a
year before fertilizing newly planted trees. I've also heard
that one
should indeed fertilize newly planted trees and that its
growth will
suffer if it's not fertilized. Can anyone give me the pros
and cons
of fertilizing this spring as opposed to waiting until next
spring?

Thanks in advance!

Brian

Most horticulturists, including myself, will recommend you wait
until after
one full growing season. If you planted in August, that would
mean this
coming fall or even next spring. Newly planted trees and other
plants need
to establish a sound root system before they attempt lots of
new top growth
that fertilizing will encourage.

Of course, the energy produced by the top growth will encourage
root growth. ;-) We growers of bonsai learned that years ago.

There is a LOT of hooie written about fertilizer and
transplanting, and fertilizing shrubs and trees in general --
much of it, as Pam said, promoted by the fertilizer manufacturers
who -- understandably -- want to sell more fertilizer. It won't
_hurt_ anything to fertilize now, if you want. But your tree
probably doesn't need it, especially if you have kept a wide bed
of oak-leaf, or pinestraw mulch around the base of the newly
planted tree. _I_ usually mix a small handful of timed-release
fertilizer into the soil around the tree as I plant it, then
leave it at that.

The exception might be a brand-new yard, where the developers
have scrapped away all of the good topsoil, then laid turf on top
of bare clay (my son in Durham, N.C. had one of these yards -- it
was terrible, and almost hopeless). In that case, mulch AND a
time-release fertilizer scattered over the mulch in the spring
and covered with a thin layer of more mulch probably will help.
The mulch is key, however.

The only shrubs that I fertilize regularly are azalea because of
their compact, dense root system that does not use much of the
nutrient stored in surrounding soil.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.