When giving fairly quick-acting high-nitrogen plant foods commencing around
this time of year, how often should they be given?

I'm trying to get my rosa rugosas to reach a decent height quickly and am not
concerned about them flowering- I just need the height and the thorns.

I got some dried blood and this is apparently reasonably quick-acting. I
suspect that if it is quick-acting then it will also be quick-disappearing.
No instructions supplied other than dosage. Would every two weeks be too
often?

I also got some urea but that looks so high in nitrogen I'm scared to use
it....


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"VX" wrote in message
s.com...

When giving fairly quick-acting high-nitrogen plant foods commencing
around
this time of year, how often should they be given?

I'm trying to get my rosa rugosas to reach a decent height quickly and am
not
concerned about them flowering- I just need the height and the thorns.

I got some dried blood and this is apparently reasonably quick-acting. I
suspect that if it is quick-acting then it will also be
quick-disappearing.
No instructions supplied other than dosage. Would every two weeks be too
often?

I also got some urea but that looks so high in nitrogen I'm scared to use
it....


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I suppose every couple of weeks would be OK but---Are you sure about trying
to boost the growth with just Nitrogen?
You need root growth also --so perhaps you need phosphate as well.
I would have thought that regular feeding with a balanced fertiliser would
achieve your wishes.

Urea contains approx 4 times the N content of Dried Blood--so use a quarter
of the amount.

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 17:51:44 +0100, Rupert wrote
(in message ):

I suppose every couple of weeks would be OK but---Are you sure about trying
to boost the growth with just Nitrogen?

I did originally write a more complete post but discarded it- it was just too
much info and my question was getting lost. I'm not using only nitrogen, but
I do want to give more nitrogen than normal. I already put down a of of
blood. fish and bone a couple of weeks ago, since that's all I had at the
time and I wanted the nitrogen (blood) part in there straight away. I did
read up on the differernt fertiliser types in "The Garden Expert" and I am
beginning to understand this. It seems that the bone part is mostly
phosphates, as needed for the roots and is slow acting. The fish is equal
nitrogen and phosphates, so that's top growth and roots, and is
slow-to-fairly-quick acting. I belatedly found I'd given about four times the
recommended dose of this mix so I think its already had all the balanced feed
it needs for a while.

I previously got a suggestion to use a high nitrogen feed to help the growth
so while what I've put down so far is balanced, now I reckon I can just dose
it all up with nitrogen for a while.

You need root growth also --so perhaps you need phosphate as well.
I would have thought that regular feeding with a balanced fertiliser would
achieve your wishes.

It might do, but I'd rather the plants put all their effort into growing;
flowering (and fruiting) would be a waste of precious plant energy from my
point of view. I need these 12-15" high rugosas to grow into a serious
barrier ASAP and prollific flowering would be a waste of energy this year, so
my hope is that by biasing the feed the way I want it to go I can actually
persuade these plants to do what I want within reason, and grow more
(hopefully more than they would have with only balanced feed) and it's fine
if they also flower a bit less.

[Last summer I was watching my little rugosas produce lots of these big
juicy-looking hips and I couldn't help thinking if only all that had gone
into making the plants grow bigger instead....]

Yes, I'm not quite as mad as my post makes me sound- I wouldn't use nitrogen
on its own!

Urea contains approx 4 times the N content of Dried Blood--so use a quarter
of the amount.

Thanks for that. I'm now safe to proceed....


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