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Feeding Your Plants, Controlling And Increasing Their Growth Patterns

Feeding your plants is a very important maintenance step to ensure the health and proper growth of trees, shrubs, flowers and herbs. There are a couple of different ways to go about providing nourishment for many different plant specimens. This landscape article will give you a few simple tips and techniques in making organic fertilizer, liquid solutions, and sidedressing. Other options for maintaining healthy specimens, are deadheading and pinching out the growth tips. When considering any landscape or garden project, I will recommend to my clients to have their soil tested. To me, this is one critical step in understanding your ground and soil's make up. In the plan, prep, and plant page, there is further information on on the planning stage, and knowing your soil.







Lets take a look at organic fertilizers. There are some very good brands available to us today. One of the advantages of using organic fertilizers is they reduce the risk of hurting the environment, and endangering wildlife. One important aspect to realize is planting a small garden compared to a larger landscape area. In a small garden area, you can add up to four inches of organic material to enrich nutrients that may be missing. In a larger landscape area, this may be impossible due to the size. You can work with inorganic, and in the next couple of years, add some organic materials. In the simple solutions section, there is a page on making your own organic compost for feeding your plants. Many people that have gardens and landscapes, don't want to mess around with the process of decomposition, and they opt for bags of organic material. One of the products I recommend and use for feeding plants is organic mushroom compost. You simply add this compost into your soil when prepping and planting. This is an organic fertilizer that will last up to one year.

Another option is sidedressing. This is the process of using a commercial granular or powdered fertilizer. The granular or powdered mixture releases nutrients a lot faster than organic fertilizers. Applying a small handful to your plants such as annuals in late spring and again in mid summer, allows the feeding of the nutrients to increase the growth and healthiness of each specimen. Two popular fertilizers are 5 - 10 - 5, or 10 - 10 - 10.

Liquid solutions is another fast way to feed the nutrients to your plants. This fertilizer comes in a liquid form and is diluted with water. Make sure you read the directions to make the right concentrate level. If you have new plants or have just pruned specimens, use a milder form of liquid solutions, so you won't promote shock in any of your plants.







There are two methods of increasing and controlling growth in annual and perennial flowers. One is pinching back, and the other is deadheading. When you pinch back a plant, you are actually encouraging it to fill out. The correct way to pinch back is when the plant is going through its main growth spurt. Remove the bud at the end of the stem, before the first flower formation appears. If you are germinating from seeds, wait until the plants have reached three to four inches tall before pinching back. By pinching back the growth bud from the main stem, you are redirecting the growth pattern to other side buds, which in turn will fill out each plant.

Deadheading is another important aspect of plant care. Deadheading can be done when the flower is past full bloom stage. There are two reasons to deadhead your flowering plants. One is the dead flower is still actually alive and feeding on nutrients that should be directed toward the new buds and flowers that are just forming. The second is the look of your garden. To keep up a great appearance to your landscape, removing the dead flowers will allow your area to have the massive beauty you intended. A tip when deadheading any flower, always make a clean cut and never a ragged cut. The ragged cut will only delay future buds and flowers in developing. Remember, even with flowers, trimming or pruning at an angle, will prevent any damage to the plant. Single flowers should be cut back should be cut back on a stem to where a side shoot is already developing. Cluster flowers need to be deadheaded as each individual flowers passes the bloom stage.

Feeding your plants can be done in a safe and easy way, as well as maintaining your flowers by pinching back or deadheading. Your ornamental shrubs and trees can be done the same way as your flowers. Whatever your plans are in your outside world, take the time to plan, prep, plant, create maintenance programs, and more importantly, ENJOY!


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