In article ,
(Patrick) wrote:

Thought the NG might find this interesting/informative.

http://www.mgonline.com/fertilize.html

Patrick

The article you've recommended is so wacky in its desire for everyone to
maximize the number of chemicals slathered in the garden the maximum
number of times per year that I'm surprised it isn't at the website of a
chemical vendor.

Oh wait! The article IS at the website of a chemical vendor!

The vendor's main product offered is a palm tree fertilizer for $10 a
pound. So of course the article claims the product they resell is the
closest thing you can get to a universal fertilizer for every inch of the
garden four to six times a year. If you used their particular product six
times a year, you'd eventually be killing perennials with the contininous
addition of boron & zinc added to the soil. The boron in particular does
not wash out of the soil so accumulates & eventually makes soil useless to
plants, meaning this is the worst fertilizer to use as a "universal"
fertilizer six times a year.

And the excesses of nitrogen they are advocating might turn some plants
nice & green with swift production of new limbs or lots of foliage, but
will stop many flowering shrubs from ever flowering.

Where the nitrogen component of soil is concerned, moisture & a
low-nitrogen topcoating (such as autumn leaves, leafmold, or composted
manure as mulch) will induce microrganisms to produce nitrogens in the
soil "coincidentally" at exactly the rate plants require. Nature is full
of lovely tricks like that. Slathering chemicals interupts rather than
assists a garden's natural balance. Because gardens tend to be more
crowded than nature or to be insufficiently leaf-covered in autumn, with
nutrients by too many techniques carted away rather than recycled back
into the garden, occasional fertilizing may be inescapable. It should be
done, at most, as needed, which can range from occasionally to rarely to
never.

The vendor is a curious old duck also selling "residential landscaping" &
promising they will NOT do what you want if you hire them: "We do not
plant other people's designs.* That's just plain labor and no fun.**
Besides, at the end of the work, we don't want to be judged by someone
else's concepts." Great. Hire a couple beer-gut dufuses to landscape your
garden to THEIR taste or standard pattern using whatever plants they
obtained most cheaply, because it's just too much work for them to do an
individual landscaping job for the persons who will actually have to live
with the result.

It's also sad to once again see evidence that the title "Master Gardener"
tends to indicate an individual little-capable of sound advice. It's a
title anyone can acquire with minimal effort, unlike say a horticultural
degree or the body of knowledge required by an arborist. When a
landscaper's greatest qualification is boasting they squeeked through the
master gardener program alongside a lot of charming
little-old-ladies-in-garden-shoes, you just know what these "landscapers"
really are are ditchdiggers turned lawn-installers.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com