Specialty Gardening: fertilizer and containers, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Most of us are poor observers and get cause/effect relationships wrong all the time. You just know that your plants are looking better since you started using a bloom-booster fertilizer, but it's illogical to assume that is the only possible cause. If your plants are looking better, it is for some other reason than the high-P fertilizer. While, by anecdote, you relate that your plants look better because you are using a fertilizer with a very high P content, by science I can tell you that cannot possibly be so.

You're on a road trip and are behind schedule. You look at your gas gauge & see there is only 1/4 tank left. By your reasoning, filling the tank will make you go faster. We KNOW by science, it won't; and adding huge amounts of P will not make your plants bloom better - it is actually quite bad for your plantings. Or - you get a chain letter that threatens you with dire consequences if you break the chain. you laugh and throw it in the garbage. On your way to work the next day (God forbid) you slip and break a leg. When you get back from the hospital you send out 200 copies of the chain letter and add an extra note telling people they had BETTER forward the chain letter because you have PROOF that bad things will happen if you don't.

Things are not always what they seem. Practically on a daily basis in my forum travels I run into folks who attribute how their plants react to causes that cannot even be remotely related to the effects. High-P fertilizers/blooming are often one of those very misunderstood cause/effect relationships. Plants need no more P during their reproductive phases than they do in any of the other life phases, and they only need about 1/6 the P as N. 24-8-16, 12-4-8, 9-3-6, or any of the other 3:1:2 ratio fertilizers do that best.

A true anecdote: Last Sep 23, I had the Gladwin County, MI Master Gardeners tour my gardens. Almost without exception, they couldn't get over how gorgeous the containers still looked. Is it logical for me to observe that because my containers looked so good in late Sep, and yours only looked good in Aug, that using 24-8-16 fertilizer is better? No, it's not. What IS logical though, is to make the observations that A) You certainly do not need a high P fertilizer to have good looking containers late into the year B) That, since science supports the fact that they are far more likely to be harmful than helpful, it's a bad idea to use them.

As usual, I'm not trying to get you to change anything ..... I just don't want others to follow suit based on erroneous observation. . Because you still disagree, the conversation should be considered as leaning more toward enlightening those listening in, than as an attempt to get you to change anything. I'll have to point out though, that just thinking you are seeing a benefit from the high-P fertilizer and relying on that singular thought as the basis for disagreement is a long way from presenting a convincing case to the others. ;o)

Al

A September container: