Plants Hungry for Food
Hanging Baskets and Planters are beginning to appear on most houses and buildings inbetween the showers. Those baskets and planters not placed directly under the eves of houses are getting a plentiful supply of water, don’t forget when you hang a basket or planter from your house that many do hang beneath the eves and therefore do not catch any rainwater, watering is obviously essential, however, over a period of time it washes away leaches any feed in the compost that has not been taken up by the plants.
Whether you buy your basket / planter or make it yourself the chances are that the compost will contain an amount of feed to keep the plants sustained for a short time.
The compost used at Oaktree Nursery is a professional multi purpose compost from J. Arthur Bowers, it contains a certain amount of feed which under normal conditions should last a couple of months after initial planting.
My advice is to feed regularly and not rely solely on any added feed that the compost or growing medium may contain.
If you pack your containers as I do, with as many plants that can be crammed into the space provided, the poor plants will be desperate for food before long. Liquid feeds are a good idea but tend to get forgotten as the season wears on. We all start off with good intentions but how many of us keep up the routine. In my experience the best way to feed plants in containers is to add the feed as a slow release during planting. This can be done by either buying a sack or box of loose slow release fertiliser, often mistaken as slug eggs when viewed in the compost, this can be a costly way to feed, not only financially but also it can have a detrimental affect on the plants if too much feed is used.
I am currently selling some packs of slow release plugs, a cluster of exactly the right amount of slow release fertiliser ‘glued’ into a plug shape. For a twelve inch basket simply insert a couple of plugs into the compost about two thirds of the overall depth, for larger baskets follow the instructions on the box. As a special summer offer I am selling a pack of twelve plugs for £1.85.
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