On 7/24/2009 5:48 PM, Smile Champ wrote:
What ferterlizer works best? I would like to know my other gardeners
think. Please post here your answer.


As Hare-Scott indicates (but expressed more simply), different plants
require different fertilizers.

Some examples:

I sometimes feed my roses, citrus, and gardenia with ammonium sulfate.
I can't use this acid fertilizer on my iris, primroses, or dianthus
because these require an alkaline soil. While azaleas and camellias do
like an acid soil, I can't use high-nitrogen, fast-acting ammonium
sulfate on those because they want a low-nitrogen, slow-acting fertilizer.

For most of my beds, I use a hardware store's house brand of lawn food.
This does not have enough iron or zinc for my gardenia and citrus and
is still too strong for azaleas and camellias.

My camellias and azaleas get a commercial camellia and azalea fertilizer.

Because my orchids are planted in bark chips and not soil, I have to be
sure fertilizer does not burn their roots, which are effectively
exposed. I dissolve a commercial orchid food in water and use it as a
drench.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary