Best plant food for MGs ?

What is the best plant food for MGs, to insure lots of vigerous growth and plenty of blooms ?

I want to grow a privacy screen on one side of our hot-tub, so a thick and vigerous
plant is desireable.

Thanks

Peggy, I think we all use something different. It is made out of the same stuff anyway. What is available to you may not be available to me. Even in the chain stores they have geographic differences.

If you want a nice thick screen, I would recommend Osmocote 14-14-14. You apply it once and just water the rest of the season. It is a time release formula designed to last the whole season. Then when the vines get up there, you might want to clip the tops out at a privacy level, and then they will fill in quite well making your screen opaque. If you have a few places where there are a few thin spots, you might want to snip one or so out there and let them fill the hole.

You can get Heavenly Blue on ebay dirt cheap, if you like sky blue. For making a screen, you probably want to over seed a little so you can thin here and there.

Frank

If you want a thick and vigorous vegetative screen, you will probably have to get it at the expense of blooms. I only give bloom booster to my MG's (no nitrogen). For more vegetation you need to give nitrogen.

Beth, Is bloom booster the actual name of the no N fertilizer? Is that what I look for on the shelf at the garden center? Frank

The one I buy is called "Bloom Booster", has no nitrogen, and I get it at Rite Aid.

i get mine at Lowes its Called Bloom Boster

Thanks all. I'll go get some today. My starts are up, but seem to be growing so slowly. They must need something.

Sometimes the starts grow slowly due to the temperature in spring. These plants don't really take off till temps are in the 70's. They are probably just waiting for warmer weather.

I have a question regarding the above.... I have 4 sets of MGs planted in different areas of my lot. Two sets are only located a few feet from each other on either side of a walkway to grow up poles and trellises. But one set is has 3" leaves already and vining 2 feet up, tall bushy and the other set looks like a baby and only has 1/2" leaves and stands no more than 3" tall...anyone have a clue?

I started getting into MG because I loved the way they looked but also that they were easy and hard to kill.lol

I just find it odd that every set has such a different growing rate when they all receive about the same sun, similiar soil and planted around the same time.

Are these sets all the same species and cultivar?

No, but they were all from the same mixed lot.

They were sent to me from a friend and I just scattered them in different spots. The ones I am keeping track of are planted in long planter boxes so I can label the seeds I plant, but these were a mixed variety of about 15 different types of seed.

Genetic diversity is what enables living things to survive for millions of years...

Just be very careful with real high phosphorous fertilizers...they work great for making something bloom.....but they can also burn the plant if you are not careful.....if you want foliage go for higher nitrogen, but i think the 14-14-14 Oscmocote is a safe bet. I almost ruined over 100 plants on the front porch the other day even when I followed the directions of an 1/8 of a tsp. to a gallon with some high nitrogen content. New growth is certainly there, but the old leaves are curling...they will be ok because I have flushed water through the pots..

I really like the prospect of a no nitrogen fertilizer. Our usual N-P-K , formulation, is not good world wide. It is only american. For instance when you grow species from Australia, like callistoma, no P!
Many of the Australian plants have Phosphorous fixing nodules on their roots. Americans don't know this. We go to the garden center and buy this beaustiful little red bottle bush called Calistimen, and take it home, BUT IT IS AUSTRALIAN , AND DOES NOT LIKE PHOSPHORUS ADDED TO ITS FEEDING. And so it is with the mgs, and N added to every thing we feed them. I am pretty sure that N helps the damping off fungi as well.

Back in 1969, I went to Sydney Australia, for Rest and Relaxation, from Viet Nam. A group of US GIs, hired a driver with a 4wd, to take us up into the Blue Mountains, sight seeing. When we got our Mutton steaks down us and we were on our way, we came to a place which looked like a cemetery.

But wait, those are not toumb stones, they were termite mounds, 6 feet high, and every bit as solid as a grave stone. But wait, in the distance was another marvel. Banksia ericifolia!!!!!! So outstanding, words fail. Imagine a ten year old Rhododendron, decorated with flouresecent hair rollers , salmon and red, 5" tall and , and I mean perfectly erect like true fir cones. What a botanical sight that was, in nature. Just last week, for the first time, in 35+ years I found the seeds of this wonderful specie, but alas, no growing info. Oh geez to relive that day, so long ago. Fertilizer is good for the ones that sell it and don't have a clue about the needs of continental differences in seed growing.

Be careful people! Frank

Thank you for your story, Frank, I enjoyed reading it very much and now want to investigate Banksia ericifolia now!

Joseph