Have yall tried the Miracle grow bloom booster plant food? How does it work? Do you see more blooms? What kind of plants do yall use it on?
Bloom booster
I have never used any of the "bloom booster" type fertilizers. I try to stay as organic as possible. I just bought a soil test kit from Lowe's and again, it says I have little nitrogen and a lot of the others. I have thought about using something like this tho on my butterfly bushes. I know someone who does that.
Buddlea actually grow and bloom best in poor soils - at least in the UK. If you use lots of fertiliser you get a lot of leaf and 'soft' growth but not the blooms.
HTH
Carol
I'm glad I didn't use it then. I had great growth and blooms earlier in the season, but then it slowed down. I wonder if that's just normal for them?
deb, what are you wanting to use this stuff on?
konkreteblond, I've thought about getting one of those testers and now that you've mentioned it........Do it work and wadja have to spend on it ?? if I may ask.
The one I got at Lowe's this year was $14. It has 4 tubes and little packages of tablets and a book. I think you can do like 8 tests of each thing. The price isn't so bad since you get so many tests. I did several a few years ago that were the RapiTest brand and they were about $5 for the tubes and little capsules to mix with it. I couldn't find those tho.
They do seem to work. I've sent my soil off to be tested also and it said the same thing...no nitrogen. Every time I've done them too my soil shows high alkaline, about an 8. The only thing I wish it would tell you is iron or magnesium too. I guess I need to dig out the results from the lab for that.
thanks for the info !
The ag dept guy said in TX soils don't overdo Phosphorus. Phosphorus is immobile in clay soils and builds up as you add more. It makes copper, iron and zinc unavailable to the plant and will cause deficiency symptoms of those nutrients(yellow, thickened leaves with green midribs and short petioles)
He recommended a 15-5-10 fertilize especially made for TX soils and sold by Vigaro. He said our long growing season and intense heat make more nitrogen necessary because it's used up by plants because they are growing fast, or by decomposition of mulch and other organic materials in the soil.
Thanks for that tip! I will check the zinc levels on my soil test from last year. I was reading that the symptoms for that deficiency are the same as magnesium. Since I have that clay soil it could be the zinc. I will pass this on!
There is a lady here in Fredericksburg who just opened a nursery and a testing lab. She doesn't test for ph though. She tests to see whether you have bacteria or fungus growing in your dirt. She is supposed to hold a seminar soon to explain this new approach and I plan to go. It sounds very interesting. She was my daughter's biology teacher in high school.
That sounds interesting. Is she going to be testing for good and/or bad bacteria and fungus? Let us know what you learn.