In my part of the world there are many locals with blue hydrangeas whose
neighbours just next door have all shades of red due to soil acidity and
they swear its all
due to the generous quantity of nails they put under when planting which
have rusted. Red to blue, blue to red, this is a 'perennial problem' of
trying to be different which we are all guilty of at one time or another.
But one thing is for sure wherever we live, and whatever soil conditions
nature provides its invariably more costly to go against her rather than
with her.
Regards
Mike Gilmore
www.winsfordwalledgarden.freeserve.co.uk


"Timothy" wrote in message
s.com...
On Mon, 03 May 2004 23:47:51 -0400, madgardener wrote:

Ok Dave, since you've got yer stuff together on the fertilizers, I need
to
ask YOU a question.........my friend whose been in landscaping for years
now
(a couple of decades) has recently been fiddling around with mixing
Ironite
that Lowe's sells in granular form (a handful per container, or mixing
soils
and some ironite up with the soils and planting perennials). She
convinced
me to use it myself when I saw the massive improvement in the size and
health of her plants in just a year. If I'm only using this in my
perennials (the bag says NO BURN) why will they grow lush and larger? I
have
red clay soil and I've ammended with compost, worm soil, and cheap
topsoil.

I've done a search in my gardening books and nothing comes up on
IRONITE.
If you saw the results that Karol had with bareroot plants that were
just 18
months old, you'd have converted to Ironite in the soil too.
I appreciate the trouble you're going to on this. I need to learn as
much
as possible, and before I start mixing massive amounts of soils and
Ironite
I need to make sure it won't have long term effects on my plants and
possibly us. If it's safe, just let me know....
madgardener still learning about this whole thing

Sorry for steping in on this conversation, but I have at least two
customers a year asking about ironite. I had to field so many questions on
ironite that I researched it. My findings were a bit unsettling to say the
least. Ironite is mine waste from the Iron King Mine in Arizona.
http://www.envirolaw.org/poison.html

You can look up the metal contents he
http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilize...B/Product1.asp