Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Blooming Studio a here at proven Winners Color
Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with
Stacy Hervella, Me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer
Adrianna Robinson. Today we're going to talk about fertilizer and amendments.
I'm not an agronomist. I'm not a soil scientist, simply
someone who's grounded in fifty years of experience helping people
interact with their plants. What's worked, what hasn't worked, and
to date myself, I'm not taking the Thomas Dolby she
blinded me with science approach because I'm not a scientist,
but I do know what works in feeding our plants
and Stacy, I've often told people that the gardening season,
the growing season is a marathon. It's like running in
a race. And the best analogy that I can apply,
because I like to uncompetitively, is I experiment with electrolytes
and energy gels and chews and caffeine and beat juice
and all this kind of stuff. As a matter of fact,
when I was training for a marathon, one of the
people who was training us was big into pepper and
chini juice from the jar from peppern chini peppers, and
you drink a little bit of that, that'll make you
pucker up. But we're always looking for that edge, something
that gives you that competitive edge. And Stacey, I've learned
over fifty years people are very interested in.
Speaker 2: That, oh for sure. Yeah, and it's not going to
surprise you or our listeners that I have some awfully
strong feelings about fertilizers that will be shared today, shared
in But no, I think this is a great time
for this topic because you know, like pretty much everything's planted.
I have to confess I do not yet have my
tomatoes planted because the night time temperatures are still so low.
You know, we're still looking at you know, a hovering
around fifty, which can set back tomatoes. So you know,
I grew them all by from seed myself. I'm not
willing to sacrifice them to the weather. But from most people,
everything's planted, and now we kind of move forward into
the gardening season, wait to see what it does. And
shortly after all of this we start thinking about fertilizing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, then buckle in and put your seatbacks in
the upright position. Because I come from the garden center industry,
and essentially what we do is we try to help people,
and we're in the business of selling fertilizer, selling amendments,
selling the next best thing. The people who pick up
the phone and call me and say, Wow, we're having
a competition in our neighborhood. I want to have the best,
the greenest lawn. By the way, I have a pointer
around that. We'll get to that at some point today.
Can you help me? But you're going to fertilize different
plants in different ways. For example, the hungry teenagers of
the plant world are the annuals that we're busy planting
right now, whereas perennials and shrubs need far less fertilizer
than annuals to thrive, maybe a single application per year,
maybe none whatsoever. We'll hear from Stacy on that and
how she feels about it, and what we get out
of the way right off the bat is NPK, so nitrogen, phosphorus, potash,
the major nutrients. The phosphorus in the center the center number.
It's going to help with blooming and rooting, and the
potash is good for overall vigor. But then there are
many fertilizers including this fertilizer that has the micronutrients. And
I have found, Stacy that most of the micronutrients a
are readily available in soil without having to add them
be generally help in the whole process of photosynthesis and
chlorophyllm many of them do, and you'll see it in
the foliage if you are lacking in some of these
micro nutrients. But I guess the point here to be made,
Stacy is that not all fertilizer is made the same
or equal, and it's important, just like anything else, to
read the label and to follow label direction it is.
Speaker 2: And you know, so basically, you know, we kind of
got this idea for this show. We had someone say, hey,
what is what is that NPK thing all about? And
so briefly, to make a very long story short, there
was a soil scientist who determined that nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium were the most limiting nutrients to plant growth. So
that is why to this day, even though this happened
like in the seventeen hundreds or eighteen hundreds, that's why
to this day all of our fertilizers are based around. Now.
They may have macronutrients, they may have micronutrients. Both micronutrients
and macronutrients are equally as essential to plant health. However,
micronutrients are just needed in much smaller quantities. And like
you said, Rick, most of these you know, kind of
secondary and tertiary nutrients. It's not that they're less essential,
it's just that there tend to be a lot more
likely to already be found in your natural soils. There
are definitely exceptions, like if you live in an extreme
climate like the desert, you can get all sorts of
crazy things happening because you aren't getting like regular moisture
in your soil. So there are conditions throughout the US
where you may be deficient in some of these nutrients.
But overall, we base our fertilizers on NPK, and whether
you choose an organic or a conventional or chemical fertilizer.
You know, the thing that was kind of mind blowing
to me when I learned about this is from a
plant perspective, it does not make any difference. The plant
is going to experience that nitrogen, phosphorus and potascia the
exact same, whether it gets it from a quote unquote
organic fertilizer or conventional slash chemical fertilizer. The difference, of
course to us as gardeners is how they are made.
And one could potentially make the case that the organic
fertilizers are going to be made in a way that
is a little bit more environmentally friendly, less perhaps industrial
than a lot of those kind of more standards. So
when we talk about the difference between choosing an organic
versus a conventional or chemical fertilizer, there are all chemicals,
like when we're talking about nitrogen and phosphorus and all
of that's all chemicals. It's really up to you and
kind of thinking about that source if you are adding
these fertilizers to your garden.
Speaker 1: And my personal opinion would be that the organic fertilizers
tend to be a slower release. Now I know that
that's a general rule of thumb, but that is my
approach there. It's also important to understand ratios as far
as fertilizer is concerned, and we can talk about that
in segment four. Let me give you the fertilizer limb
a rick this week. I tend to be an analyzer
with this and that and an advisor. I want to
give it a jolt that causes my plant to bolt.
I just want a good fertilizer. Just give me a
plant energizer, not a performance tranquilizer. So here's the deal.
My plant wants a meal, not a short lived, lame appetizer.
Don't need no equalizer. I want to maximizer, a positive
charge that makes my plant large and makes me look budwiser.
That's the whole goal. Let's see how Stacey ties this
in and plants on trial. That's coming up next here
on the Gardening Simplified Show.
Speaker 2: Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber evergreen for every
taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive white
container your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show. We were talking about
one of my favorite topics, and I know I said
that last week when we were talking about beneficial insects,
but I am also really passionate about fertilizer. And the
reason I'm so passionate about it is because it's so
interesting and we do not, unfortunately have time, and you
probably don't want to hear it anyway, but if you do,
you can look it up to get way into the
intricacies of fertilizer. But you know, I remember when I
was in horticulture school. I thought that my soil science
class was going to be like the most boring class
that I would take in my career, and it turned
out to be the exact opposite. It was literally life
changing for me. I learned so much. It just completely
changed the way that I think about growing plants, the
way that I think think about soil, And you know,
it was just one hundred percent great for me.
Speaker 1: Did you ever watch the movie Billy Madison with Adam
Sam I've never seen that one. Oh okay, You're sitting
in the classroom and the teachers feels exactly like.
Speaker 2: You do about soil science.
Speaker 1: Yeah and excited.
Speaker 2: Really and it's soil science in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he says chlorophyl more like borror film.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I've heard people say that before.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it came from a movie Billy Madison.
Speaker 2: Okay, anyhow, sorry, interesting, Well, at the risk of making
myself the butt of a joke. I learned so much
and if I have one single issue with fertilizers, are
you ready for this. I've said it on the show
again before, but I'm going to say it again. Fertilizer
is not plant food. Fertilizer is not plant food, and
I have a huge problem with calling it plant food
for two reasons. Number One, plants make their own food
through the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is literally the foundation
for life on earth as we currently know it true,
and therefore, by taking away by distancing plants from their
ability to their amazing ability to make their own food
and act like food is now something we have to
give them in the form of a fertilizer, just as
a huge disservice to the amazing power of plants and
how truly intrinsic they are to keeping our world habitable.
So I think plants deserve some credit for their incredible
ability to make their own food. Therefore, I have an
issue with calling fertilizer plant food.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I am in marketing, so of course I understand when
way way back this idea of it being plant food
was someone's genius marketing idea. The other issue that I
have with it, though, is that it makes it sound
much more essential than it really is. Now, as we
started to discuss in segment one, if you were growing annuals,
if you're growing vegetables, if you are a farmer, of course,
if you're doing anything from a high production standpoint, like
if your annuals, you want a lot of flowers. With
your vegetables, you want a lot of tomatoes, you want
big carrots. If you are trying to get those, you know,
really excellent results, then yes, you will probably mean to
either manage your soil fertility by you know, adding composts
or manure and mulching and maintaining a healthy soil, which
is not always practical. Like I would love to be
able to do that, but I don't think it's practical
for me to constantly maintain the amount of composts that
I would need, and it would also raise my grade
of my yard, which would drive my husband up a wall,
and we don't want that so short season. Yeah, anything
that you need production from that, you're you're expecting real
results rather than just like standing over in the corner
looking beautiful. But yeah, so when you call it plant food,
it makes it sound like something that you must do,
when in fact, probably the more apt coral for fertilizers
would be vitamins or supplements. And you talked a little
bit about this when you're talking about, you know, different
things for running, and so that's really what it is.
And it's also really similar in the fact that we
know that we can get most of our nutrition by
eating a balanced diet and eating a wide range of
different types of foods, and that that can generally cover
almost all of our nutrient needs. But sometimes, you know,
we're here in Michigan, vitamin D is a big issue,
not really found in you know, a lot of our foods,
so very many Michiganders and other Midwesterners end up taking
a vitamin D supplement. So that's really more what it's like.
You're not going to die if you don't take that
vitamin D supplement, but it could be you know, harming you.
So you know, I not only do I resent the
lack of credit plants get by calling it plant food,
but I resent that it makes it seem very much
more essential. And it's it's simply not the case in
all situations. But when it comes to shrubs and a
lot of what I'm about to share with you is
by extension true for perennials as well, but I'm really
focusing on shrubs overall. I don't think a lot of
fertilizer is necessary. And we hear from so many gardeners
who are like, how many times a week should I
be fertilizing my new hydrangea? And absolutely do not fertilize
your new hydrangea multiple times a week. That is not necessary.
Now I will say, for myself, living in an area
with a very sandy soil, I fertilize my shrubs and
perennials once a year. Yep. Just go out there and
I put a granular fertilizer all over the garden in
like early spring, late winter and call it good, and
it's fine. I have absolutely no complaints about the performance
of my annual of my perennials and shrubs. But there
are some situations where it will be beneficial, and so
that's what I'm going to share next. So number one,
if you have reblooming shrubs, fertilizer is going to be
very beneficial. Now this goes act about what you're saying
kind of about that production reblooming shrubs. Bloom on old
wood like their conventional counterparts, their rebloom, their new wood
bloom only happens on whatever new growth they are able
to put on between that old wood bloom. And you
know when they are when that new growth is mature
enough to actually create that new wood flower. So the
key to good rebloom, whether we're talking about bloomerang, lilac,
Let's dance, hydrangeas, steady Eddy, if I burn them our
sonic bloom reblooming widealas which are just starting to get
going right now and looking fabulous, I do recommend a
little bit more fertilizer on these because if you fertilize
them after their first bloom in spraying or early summer
or whatever that is, you give them a little fertilizer
that is going to help them to put on that
extra growth and you will get a much better rebloom
as a result. So it's really key if you want
the best rebloom. No, you don't have to do it
for everything, but if you want the best rebloom, that's
what you're gonna have to do. Number two, you're saying, Rick,
some shrubs are just hungry. Now most of them are not,
but some do have some higher fertility needs. And I
find probably the best example of this, Rosa Sharin interesting
a plant that is absolutely positively low maintenance. Yeah, you
don't have to worry about it. But if you have
a Rosa Sharon, it's still probably flowering fine, that's cool,
but you're probably resigned to it having this kind of
you know, sickly pale, greeny yellow looking foliage. It does
not have to be that way. It really needs those
resources for the best foliage. So like if you look
at our photos of roses of Sharon and the proven
winner's color choice line, you're like, wow, those look amazing.
You got to fertilize them if you want that, you know,
to go from that kind of you know, Namby Pamby
yellowy green foliage to that thick, lush, dark green blue
foliage that you see in our photos. So that is
one plant that also benefits from regular fertilizer.
Speaker 1: I have one that looks like that right now.
Speaker 2: So you might be if you have a Rosa share
and now would be a great time to go ahead
and give it some fertilizer and see how much better
it can be. You just don't want to confuse your
hungry shrubs, for shrubs that are having a pH issue,
because soil pH can cause nutrient deficiencies that aren't true
nutrient deficiencies. The nutrients are there in the soil, but
they just can't access them because of the pH, and
you cannot fertilize yourself out of that problem. You need
to correct the pH. And then finally, last situation where
you may want to fertilize a little bit more than
just that one time in spring. If you're starting with
a small shrub like you bought online, like our little
court shrubs, which sometimes that's all you can find when
we have a new variety by those online, or if
you're starting a privacy hedge and I did recently start
a privacy hedge, and I did fertilize that quite a lot,
because hey, I'm trying to get privacy here. I want
some rapid growth. So these are situations where you might
want to fertilize more often. I would say about monthly
from early spring through late July. No. Here are my
quick des and for fertilizing shrubs, and by extension perennials,
like I said, number one, once a year in spring
is sufficient in most areas, I do recommend late winter
early spring because the soil is still going to be
wet from all of the winter rains and snow and
everything that will help to carry the nutrients down to
the roots of the plant. And because these granular fertilizers
rather than a liquid fertilizer, so a fertilizer that is
going to be grains to kind of sprinkle around the ground.
Those need time to weather They need time for the
soil and the moisture to work on them before they
become available to the plant. And if we do this
in early spring, the weather, the weathering is going to
happen and those nutrients will be available just in time
for the plant to burst out into leaf. Okay, so
number two, use granular fertilizers instead of liquid fertilizers. The
reason that I feel strongly about this now, I feel
strongly about this because I am already fertilizing my vegetables
and the number of times that I have to go
and mix up a new batch of liquid fertilizer to
spread through my garden is enough to drive you crazy.
It's like an all afternoon project.
Speaker 1: But that's what I mentioned in the first segment is
people who will come up to me and say they
used a liquid fertilizer at some point on their shrub.
I think you're just far better off with a granular fertile.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can apply it so much more easily, so
much more effectively over those large areas, and it is
generally a longer lasting nutrient delivery because again the weather
is acting on those grains of the fertilizer and slowly
delivering all of that nutrient as it starts to weather.
So I am a big fan of granular fertilizers for
our perennial shrubs, landscapes, trees, all of that kind of stuff.
Number Three, if possible, use a fertilizer formulated for woody plants. Now,
this is not super duper crucial. I will also say,
you know, going back to the granular fertilizer thing, most
granular fertilizers you're gonna have a lot bigger selection than
you're gonna find among the liquid fertilizers. So you can
kind of dial it in a little bit more. Now,
I recommend a general rose fertilizer for fertilizing flowering shrubs. Why, well,
roses are flowering shrubs them cells, So anything that is
going to get the best results on roses, is going
to tend to get equally good results on your Wigela R. Hydrangea,
your lilac, or any other flowering shrub that you can
find or that you have in your landscape. If you
cannot find a shrub of fertilizer formulated for woody plants,
do try to look for one that is low in phosphorus.
I was talking in segment one about how this kind
of notion of all of our fertilizer choices being based
on NPK those three numbers dates back to those being
the most limited. But here in North America there are
very few, if any I'm sure there are people out
there that are going to say, well I have low phosphorus,
but very few residential scenari where you do not have
sufficient phosphorus for your plants.
Speaker 1: And again, far more important if you're doing container gardeners, yes,
or growing.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and so, phosphorus is the primary culprit for
non target pollution, so like it washes out of your
soil and goes into waterways. And again, almost all of
us are going to have more than sufficient phosphorus in
our soil, and plants cannot so called luxury consume phosphorus.
In other words, if they have a ton of phosphorus,
it does them no good. They can't use it to
do extra, they can't do more with it. They can
only use what they can use. And again, you probably
already have sufficient phosphorus in your soil, so try to
avoid fertilizers with a high amount of phosphorus. You're already
providing all of those needs and it's just not necessary
and it will potentially lead to pollution, especially if you're
out here in West Michigan where we have so so
many waterways, and many.
Speaker 1: Of those fertilizers are no longer on the market like
they used to be there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of municipalities have banned them. And
I think that there has been some movement towards increasing
the availability of low to no phosphorus fertilizers, but we're
not there yet. So if you can and you're shopping around,
look for that middle number the p the phosphorus to
be lower than the other two or even zero would
not be a problem. Now, my number five and final
before we wrap this up, is do not fertilize your shrubs.
Perennials are going again going to be a little bit
different here, but don't fertilize your shrubs after late July
or early August. Now you may think, like, what, that's crazy.
That is literally the height of summer. You'd think I'd
want to be fertilizing them like crazy. But the fact is,
by the time late July early August roll around, we're
already having much shorter nights. I mean, you know, it's
been over a month since the summice, so we've already
lost a full month of daylight. Nights are getting longer. Uh,
And it starts to trigger the plant, even though it
seems so far away to us at that point, it
starts to trigger the plant towards dormancy, starts to say, hey, listen,
shorter days are coming. You better start shutting down now.
Like I just explained, the granular fertilizers need to weather.
They need to have the water and the soil and
everything work on them to make those nutrients that they
contain available to the plant. So if you're applying that
in about you know later than say, early August, that
nutrient does not become available until now we're talking late September,
early October. And if we have a really warm autumn,
and all of a sudden, this plant has this influx
of nutrients that can push quite a lot of new
growth at a time when the plant should be shutting
down rather than going gangbusters. Now this is especially crucial
for big leaf hydranges because these are plants that love
to respond to excessive forertilizer. They will just grow like crazy.
So you don't want those nutrients to become available at
a time when the plant would otherwise be shutting down.
So if you live in a hot climate, you can
certainly push that last fertilizer you know, into probably August,
mid to late August, because you're going to obviously be
getting that winter shut down later than we will here
in Michigan, but for most of us here in the Midwest,
the Northeast, any place where we have that cold winter
that typically starts going around you know, November or so,
stop your fertilizing of your woody plants and perennials by
late July.
Speaker 1: Now that's a theory that I do want to test, Stacey,
because when it comes to trees, I have always fertilized
trees once the foliage is dropping off the trees.
Speaker 2: Let's see that's completely different.
Speaker 1: Correct, And the idea here, and I agree with you
completely later in the season, or let's say around August
first or whatever, last thing you want to do is
try to stimulate new growth. That sort of thing. Rhododendrons,
you should cut off feeding. But with trees, I like
to apply fertilizer in fall when the foliage has dropped off,
because I think we're amazed by how long the soil
stays warm, and I believe that it benefits the tree
and helps the tree off to a better start the
following spring. So I have always made that a practice.
Speaker 2: Right now, in that case, again, your plant's completely darmant.
Now we're talking more like November rather than in that
kind of late summer fall time period in October. After
that period, yeah, so once the plants dormant, things are
a little different. Now. Personally, I would avoid doing that
simply because I don't want to risk the fertilizer running off.
So I like to keep it where I know the
plant will be making good use of it, because the
longer it sits in the soil without the plant making
good use of it, which you know it may not
happen if we have nice, warm temperatures and roots are
still metabolizing, then you risk it, you know, just washing
away because of rains or whatever.
Speaker 1: So I do it, and it makes the point. Don't
fertilize on frozen soil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I don't fertilize on frozen soil. That would
be a very bad idea.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: This is really just all about trying to do the
best you can for your plants with your money, with
your time, and with the fertilizers that you use in
your garden. So as you can see, it's a topic
I feel strongly about. It's a topic that everybody I
think who has had years of gardening experience, you know, says, oh,
this is my trick or this is what I do.
And that's fine. But let's all at least try to
keep in mind that we have a responsibility when we're
using fertilizers to minimize pollution, especially to our waterways and
other places that we don't want fertilizer to wind up.
So on that note, we're going to take a little
break and open up the mouthbeg when we come back,
So stay tuned at proven runners, color choice shrubs. We
know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
Team of experts tests and evaluates all of our flowering
shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to ensure
they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable,
beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style,
look for Proven Winners shrubs in the distinctive white container
at your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it is our
time to help you with your gardens questions, quandaries and conundrums.
And if you have one about fertilizing, well, hopefully we
just answered that question for you. But we are infertilizing season,
so yeah, if you plant it up those annuals, they
probably were pretty well fertilized at the garden center before
you purchase them, but that will be running out in
the coming weeks, and you'll want to make sure you're
maintaining that high nutrient level so that you keep getting
lots and lots of flowers.
Speaker 1: Well. As you've often said, the potting mix that we
put in containers really isn't dirt or soil. Right, it's
a potting mix, and so adding nutrients to that soil,
especially for heavy feeding annuals important.
Speaker 2: Right. There's a reason why when you shot for potting
mix at the garden center, every single one of them
is from a fertilizer company, right, So because they are
putting their fertilizers in them, because they are not inherently
full of nutrients. And especially if you're like me and
you were reusing your potting mix a year after year,
then yeah, you definitely need to do that and make
sure that your plants, you know, have that ability to
have all the nutrients they need so you can keep
enjoying the reason why you plant it in the first place,
which is flowers or of course, in the case of vegetables, fruit. Now,
I feel like we had a lot of questions. I
opened the inbox and I was like, whoa, Like my
hair blew back. So we're gonna get started. What's our
first question.
Speaker 1: Sarah writes, Help, what's wrong with my SPYREEA? So Sarah sent.
Speaker 2: Pictures, several pictures. Yes, So, Sarah, thank you for kicking
off powdery mildew season for us in style your spirea
has powdery mildew. And I feel like powdery mildew is
something that we throw around a lot, We say, oh,
it has powdery has powdery mildew without really talking about it.
But powdery mildew is a fungal disease, and it basically
looks like the leaves are kind of covered in a dusty, whitish.
Speaker 1: Blue powder, white powder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it looks different depending on the plant that
gets it, but it usually, especially if you've got a
trained eye for powdery milde you can kind of pick
it up pretty quickly well.
Speaker 1: And certain plants are more prone right powdery milk.
Speaker 2: And one of the plants groups groups of plants it's
most susceptible to powdery mildew is the Rose family. Of course,
anyone who's grown roses knows that there are susceptible to
powdery mildew. But when I think of other members of
the rose family, Spiria is one of them. Nine bark
is another plant that notoriously gets powdery mildew. Also in
the Rose family, apples, peaches, cherries get powdery mildew. There's
just a lot of plants in the rose family that
are susceptible. The interesting thing about powdery mildew. Even though
we tend to talk about it as just one disease,
there are actually hundreds, possibly even thousands, of different fungus
organisms that cause powdery mildew, and they tend to be
specific to that genus of plant. So the weird thing
is that when you see powdery mildew on say, your
spyriea like Sarah, you don't necessarily have to worry about
that powdery mildew suddenly popping up on your zucchini because
it is a totally different organism that has evolved specifically
to be on that plant, and the zucchini powdery mildew
is a totally different organism. So people see powdery and they, oh,
I don't want it to spread to any of my
other plants, and that is actually relatively unlikely. Last week
we were talking about how carpenter ants in your house
can kind of work as a sentinel to tell you
that your wood is wet. Similarly, powdery mildew can kind
of work as a signal that your plant is probably
not planted in in ideal conditions for its needs.
Speaker 1: And it goes back to the approach again, the triangle.
You need a host. You need a pathogen and you
need an environment yep. And nine times out of ten
the environment becomes the problem, possibly a lilac tree that
was initially planted in the sun and now is in
a shady area, or cucumbers that are being watered over
the top. I was doing some reading on powdery mildew Stacey,
and this individual called it an obligate parasite, meaning it
needs living plant tissue to survive.
Speaker 2: I thought that was in Yeah, it doesn't grow on
dead foliage. Now, what can happen with powdery mildew is
the spores that develop the powdery mildew will overwinter on
the fallen foliage, and the next spring, when your plant
starts to leaf out and that nice, soft, glowing foliage
does not have that protective executicle, those fungal spores are like, oh, yeah,
this is my time. They infect the plant. So the
power mildew that we're seeing now in early June actually
infected your plant weeks ago. This is not something that
just happened and infected it probably when the foliage was emerging.
That's why one of the really important parts of treating
powdery mildew is to remove all of last year's foliage
after it drops in fall. But again, if the conditions
are right for powdery mildew, which is going to be
too much shade, low air circulation, so maybe you have
plants spaced too closely to it, or maybe there's something
else that change in your yard that is obstructing the
airflow to the plant. And of course as things grow,
they tend to get a little bit more crowded and
also alternate wetting and drying. Powdery mildew, like most fungal diseases,
thrives when it is being wet at the same time
every day, has all day to dry, and then the
next morning it happens again, which is exactly how our
sprinkler systems work.
Speaker 1: Again, moving water is not a problem, it's standing water.
And so again going back to host pathogen an environment,
you do have some control over the environment, improving air
circulation when you water, all of those factors contribute.
Speaker 2: So if you want to move it, that could be
a good approach. Also, this is may come as a surprise,
but milk sprays have proven to be somewhat successful against
powdery mildew. A spray of about thirty percent milk to
seventy percent water. You're going to want to use a
full fat milk, don't use skim milk. And apparently there
is some evidence that this is successful. The milk encourages
a fungal colony on the leaf that outcompetes the powdery
mildew fungus. Now, some people are probably going, I'd rather
just have the powdery mildew than whatever fungal colony the
milk that I'm about to spray is going to do.
It can be smelly, but it can be an effective way.
That's what Adriana sent to You're going to have to
make some new posters for that, so that is something
you can consider. But again, that should be more of
a preventative spray than once you already have the powdery
And who's thinking about that? When the plants are coming
out in spring, you're not even thinking about powdery mildew.
Speaker 1: Then, well against Stacey and garden centers spell they sell
plenty of fung signs. But the issue here, I think
the important issue is changing the environment somehow, changing the
environment or your practice, because that's going to make the difference, right.
Speaker 2: So why apply something some chemical exactly it could have
off target unintended consequences. It's going to cost you money,
that's going to take time. When powdery milk, when it's
going to come back when it's just as simple as
making sure that the cultural conditions are right for it
to not develop. So very common, I will say, powdery
mildew is primarily an esthetic consideration. Rarely is it really
going to take down your plant in a way that, like,
you know, it's going to die. But yeah, people don't
really like seeing it around in their beautiful June gardens.
So lots to say about powdery mildew. But I hope
that helps you. I would definitely make sure you can
try the milk spray now if you Otherwise, I would
plan to clean up really well after that plant when
it drops its foliage, or plan to move it and
see how it does in a new spot Stacy and others.
Speaker 1: Sarah writes to us, Hi, my question is regarding toxicity
of black walnuts and jug bloan. We recently cut down
a line of walnuts. I'd like to plant a hedge
of hydranges, specifically limelights in their place. Full sun zone
for b southern Wisconsin. However, I've read that the decaying
walnut roots can also cause toxicity. Will the old roots
cause issues for my new hydrange?
Speaker 2: Right? So, you know, people have so many questions about
black walnuts, and it continues to be such an elusive
topic because it's just very difficult to generalize. Now, black walnuts,
We've talked about it here and there on the show,
are known just to emit this chemical called jug loan
that can interfere in the growth of neighboring plants. Black
walnuts are the biggest culprit, but there are a number
of plants do this. Sunflowers, for example, famously are also
a lollopathic. But the trick with black walnuts is that
there are also cultural conditions that determine whether a plant
can withstand the presence of juglanes. So you may have
something in your yard that can absolutely not grow around
that black walnut, whereas your friend has the exact same
plant and is doing fine, and you're like, what gives Well,
it's probably water stressed out plants. Plants that aren't getting
sufficient water are far less likely to be able to
withstand the jug loan that the plant is emitting than
plants that are well cared for. Also, everybody blames the
roots of the walnuts, because of course that seems to
make sense. But the bigger culprits and the bigger reasons
that your plant may have stunted growth is actually fallen
walnut leaves. Fallen walnut fruits, which you know is a
problem for.
Speaker 1: It are messy. Anybody who's had to live near a
walnut tree see is the mess thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My neighbor has a huge walnut tree and they
had a glass had as the upper word glass patio table.
They no longer have a glass patio and the fallen twigs,
So if you can keep the site clear, I think
it'll be fine. I will tell you, Sarah, I had
a magnolia that was almost dead in my yard and
it was very very close to a black walnut. My
neighbors took down the black walnut because they wanted to
put up a fence, and honestly, within a year that
magnolia had completely cut back. They didn't get the stump ground,
they didn't take out the roots. It was really just
not having that tree around anymore. So I think it
will do okay. I do know that smooth hydranges like
Incredible are going to be much more sensitive too, jugglon
than panicle hydranges, but I also have heard that all
hydranges can have some sensitivity. So what I would say
for you, Sarah, start with one limelight. Put it in
you know, probably the most susceptible spot, that what you
think is the most dangerous spot. Give it a year
of watering it and see what happens. If you're coming
out and you're seeing like crazy welting or blackening of
the foliage, then it's going to be too sensitive. But again,
it's not simply the plant and what's left of the walnut.
It is the care conditions as well. So it's a
difficult question to answer. And that's why if you start
researching online plants at tolerate juggloon, you are going to
see very contradictory answers from reputable equally reputable sites. They're
just going to completely contradict each other. So fascinating topic.
I wish someone could do some research on it, but
it's just a little bit too slippery. So we're going
to take a little break. When we come back, we
are continuing our conversation about fertilizer. Simplice Toyitude, thanks for
listening to the gardening Simplified podcast brought to you by
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. As we talk
about fertilized and amendments, Stacey, people will say to me, well,
look at how well the trees and stuff grow in
the woods. Nobody's out there fertilizing that stuff. And I
guess it brings up the point that I am a
big proponent of organic fertilizers. I'm also a big proponent
of using organic matter within a landscape. And you know,
I like to use the shredded leaves within a landscape.
I think it's a form of fertilizing. That's what happens
in the woods. But in addition, it's very important for
the structure of the soil. Again, if you have compacted soil,
soil that does not have good organic matter in it,
it's not going to work real well as far as
fertilizer is concerned too. In other words, we're going to
be prone to runoff. So I'm big into that organic matter.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, you can't even really compare them because
there's also nobody in the woods, you know, taking away
the leaves and bagging it up and sending it away.
And so by leaving the leaves in the woods, you know, yeah,
you don't have to worry about runoff and rain coming
across the forest floor and leeching out nutrients and sending
them somewhere else. You're building our organic matter or compost.
So compost is kind of happening in a sheet, you know,
over the plant. And again, we're not talking about plants
needing fertilizer. We're talking about them benefiting from fertilizer. And
really that's about what we benefit from plants that we fertilize.
But yeah, absolutely, I think that people who think that,
you know, oh hey, you don't need fertilizer in the woods,
you know, they just don't realize how what those plants
could do if they were fertilized. But they don't need
to be fertilized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I want to reiterate also, Stacy, that I'm
going to come out and say those annuals and containers
and your annuals, feed them, feed them, feed them, feed them. Frequently,
and I really step on the gas. As far as
feeding is concerned, it's the other plants, the perennials, the shrubs,
the trees where we do not feed plants that way.
Some of my experience through the years is that I
was involved heavily with turf. Well, with turf, I use
a fertilizer called milorganite, and milorganite it's essentially the iron
in the fertilizer that really greens up turf, and it's
fascinating to me. I would always apply it in late fall.
Then in January we get those thaws where the snow melts,
and I had the only house in the neighborhood where
the lawn was green, and people would ask me why.
And that's kind of the approach that I take. As
I mentioned also as far as trees are concerned, for
that late feeding, but again important to note that the
soil has to be good and prepared and organic in
order to hold that nutrient in the soil and not
run off. We've got to talk about ratios a moment.
I'll have somebody coming into the garden center and they'll
say I need ten ten ten NPK. Well, I'm sorry,
we don't have a ten ten ten, but we do
have a twelve twelve twelve, and they'll say, well, I
don't want it because it says right here, I have
to have a ten ten ten. So a fifty pound
bag of ten ten ten fertilizer contains ten percent nitrogen
five pounds, ten percent phosphorus five pounds, and ten percent
potassium five pounds, and then usually the remaining part of
that fertilizer stacey is just filler.
Speaker 2: Material, right, a carrier, so you can actually apply it
because otherwise everything would be so tiny. Yeah, that's you know,
that's called a balanced fertilizer. And all three numbers are
the same. And again we're not it's not like as
many as much as fertilizer manufacturers would like you to
believe that you can like optimize your fertilizer and have
like you know that you need to have a whole
cabinet full of like twenty different fertilizers for all of
these specialty uses.
Speaker 1: Told you we're in the business of selling fertilizer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it's again from a plant perspective,
there can be these minor optimizations, but they are minor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have to mention something. Well, let's let's
not move from ratios yet, so let me mention that
as far as ratios are concerned, then Stacey, it's the
ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus to potash in the bag. Yes,
the major nutrients. Yes, all right. Number one fertilizer supplement
that aside from turf, because everybody wants that high quality
golf course turf. Okay, But one of the number one
supplements people ask me about, aside from let's say, feeding
annuals and giving them that boost, because I'll put a dry,
slow release in the soil of my flowering annuals and
then supplement pretty aggressively with a water soluble fertilizer in
the containers. I just do. But what do you think
that number one supplement is that people ask me for.
Speaker 2: Blood beel?
Speaker 1: No, I want a supplement that will turn my hydranges. Yes, yes,
it happened to me six seven times this past weekend.
And can I use something to make this plant turn blue?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of confusion on that, and I
know that you include that in hydranges demystified, But Stacey,
to share with folks, essentially, it's getting a pH test
determining if the pH is acidic enough. But that's not
just enough. People will walk in and say, I want
the soil to be acidic, so my macrophilla hydrangees will
turn bluem.
Speaker 2: So again for your hydrangea to be blue. If you
have a hydrangea that can turn color, so a big
leaf hydrangea that is not white as to be pink
or blue. White ones can't change color. You need to
have acidic soil, and you need to have aluminum in
the soil. And out here in West Michigan, our hydrangees
do tend to the pink because in sandy soils we
have very low aluminum. Correct, aluminum is very abundant in
clay soils. So if most of the products that you
find on the shelf of a garden center for churning
hydrange's blue are merely soil acidifiers, they are never going
to work. If the problem is that your soil that
you need aluminum to actually affect the color change, so
aluminum sulfate is the safe. So actually the first thing
that you should do is get a soil test. Like
Rick said, people think soil tests are for like real gardeners,
fancy gardeners. They are inexpensive, They cost less than twenty dollars,
and they will give you invaluable insight into your plant,
into what's going on in your yard. And just think
about the money that you could save by buying fewer products,
or by buying the right products. Rather than shooting in
the dark about this, know what you have, know what
your pH is, you'll know what your aluminium content is,
and then you could make an intelligent choice about what
you are going to do. That's not only going to
save time and money, it's actually going to get the
results you want exactly.
Speaker 1: But that's one that we as.
Speaker 2: Yes, So you threw me off with the annuals. I
was thinking that it was just about annuals. That yeah, definitely.
That is probably the number one soil amendment. You know,
I have another hot take on fertilizer. You cannot fertilize
yourself into a miracle.
Speaker 1: And that's a good point.
Speaker 2: You cannot. A lot of people, well we've tried. I've tried, yes,
and you can't do it. I've tried because you know,
as we have been saying throughout the show, most of
us in our soils, if we live, you know, in
a climate with somewhat regular rainfall and regular soil. All
the nutrients that we have are already All the nutrients
that a plant needs are pretty much already there. The
issue is not if your plant is suffering or dyeing
or whatever. The issue is almost never that it needs fertilizer.
And if you do get results from doing this, I
would say nine times out of ten, that was not
the fertilizer that did it. It was all the watering
that went along with applying the fertilizer.
Speaker 1: Well, this topic is fascinating because again, I've spent fifty
years in the garden center industry and I've spent fifty
years selling plant food.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know it's out there.
Speaker 1: But there is a good point here. While fertilized seems
a sure fire away to help plants thrive, certain plants,
maybe many plants perform better in lean soils and can
be harmed by extra nutrients, over fertilizing can lead to
weak floppy stems or reduced flowering or let's talk about
herbs or lavender or that sort of thing, a reduction
in the scent or natural flavor of plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it dilutes it because it pushes growth very quickly,
so things don't harden off, they don't develop certain compounds
that they would normally develop trying to grow under more
hard knock type of conditions. You know a lot of
things like big leaf hydrangels, for example, they do benefit
from high fertility and you will typically get better rebloom
on them, especially, But if you go crazy with a
fertilizer thinking if a little is good, a lot has
to be better, what you're going to end up with
is a lot of foliage, and even worse foliage that
obscures the flowers because the growth is happening so fast
that it completely covers the flowers that you do have,
and they're hidden within this sea of green, and you're
just like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's true. And I'm a person, you know,
I'm a meteorologist wannabe, so I'm fascinated by atmospheric nitrogen
or nitrogen fixing plants, beans, peas, lentils, that sort of thing.
But when you think about plants that perform better with
no supplemental fertilizer, I think you could put plants in
that category, like butterfly weed, maybe false indigo asters or
cone flowers. I know on the list are setums and
boy it bothers me, but ornamental grasses because I put
malorganite on my ornamental grasses to try and get them
really green and full. But they don't necessarily need.
Speaker 2: Oh no, they don't need it at all. Yeah, but
you can always experiment.
Speaker 1: You can.
Speaker 2: You can put it on, trust me, I'm sure you have.
But I'm telling talking to the people who haven't experimented yet.
Put it on for one year, see what the results are.
You know, you'll probably see results if you're using a
granular fertilizer in about three ish months or two to
three months, once everything has had a chance to weather
and the plant's had a chance to metabolize it. And
aside for yourself, is this something that you want to
continue to do? Do you like the results enough? Or
is it not making enough impact for you to go
through the time and energy and money anymore.
Speaker 1: Have you ever gone to the gas station and stood
at the pump and looked at the three different types
of fuel that are available and asked yourself, you know,
maybe if I spent a little more and got that
high octane stuff, I'd get better performance.
Speaker 2: In my car No, I've never thought that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see I have. Again, that's the difference because I've
sold plant food all my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, i like to save money on gas as
well as on soil supplements in fertilizers.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure that there are people out there that
can relate to me on this because you know, we're
looking for a quick fix, We're looking to really boost
that plant. But you are correct, and in many cases
we can create more problems than we're setting out to solve.
And in addition to that, yes, when you look at
those micronite nutrients, essentially they are already available in most soils.
That said, you look at chlorosis in plants and the
need for what magnesium or manganese or something like that
to deal with chlorosis. Sometimes a plant needs a boost.
Speaker 2: Well most of the time, if your plant has chlorosis
or yellowing foliage, it's a pH issue and not a
fertilizer issue. And you know what, all of our fertilizer
problems stem from calling it plant food.
Speaker 1: It's like everything else, it all all comes down to marketing.
Thanks Stacy. This has been fun and boy interest.
Speaker 2: Yes, strong opinions.
Speaker 1: Thanks very We're gonna have to do another one of these.
Thank you Adriana, thank you Stacy, and thank you for
watching us on YouTube, listening to the radio version of
our show, or downloading the podcast. Have a great week.