High nitrogen lawn fertilizer on my flowering shrubs

Louisville, KY

Today my lawn care service came by and put down a very high nitrogen granular fertilizer. They got it all over my oakleaf hydrangeas, Knock out roses, and viburnums. Also on some of my perennials. I remember reading that high nitrogen will cause lots of green and no blooms. Now I am very worried that none of my things are going to bloom this spring/summer. can someone please help? Should I put down something else to help balance out? Am I freaking out over something thats really not a big deal? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You,

Chris


Woodway, TX(Zone 8a)

Lawn services typically do things their way and not the way trained turf management scientists recommend. First of all, it is far too early to apply any fertilizer to a lawn in KY. It will simply wash away. Your grass will not take any of it up because it's not actively growing. Your lawn service has just added more nitrogen to the ground water in your area.
But as to your question, what was the analysis of the fertilizer, and how heavily did they apply it? Good luck on getting an answer. Or an accurate one. The best advice I can give is to flood the plants in question with a water hose and wash off as much as you can. Some will soak in, but if you leave it, in the long run more will soak in over time than if you do a wash now.
You could ask your lawn service to leave everything except turf alone. Good luck. You'll need it.

Louisville, KY

According to bill they left me they applied 18-0-5 2.7% Mesa .09%Demension

So are you saying that I am not going to get many blooms? What if I applied my own 0-18-0 would that help? Forgive me if these are dumb questions but I am new to all of this. I'll try and post a picture or two so you can see how much they put on.

Louisville, KY

Here is a picture

Thumbnail by HD28Cat
Woodway, TX(Zone 8a)

Adding a high phosphorus fertilizer won't "cancel out" the high nitrogen stuff they put on there. I know it's hard to do, but probably the best thing to do is wait and see how well your plants do after the weather warms up. I sure wouldn't do any more fertilizing now. As I said, it's too early in the year to do that anyway. What kind of soil do you have there? I don't guess you've had a soil analysis done? In our state A&M will do that for about $10.00. That way you know what nutrients your grass, shrubs and flowers need. Did you complain to the owner of the "lawn service" today? What was the reply? Did you ask him why anybody would fertilize grass that's completely dormant?

Dublin, CA(Zone 9a)

Also while high nitrogen can cause a lot of green growth at the expense of blooms, that doesn't necessarily mean none of your plants are going to bloom this year--it depends on the plant and how much fertilizer actually got on it and sticks around. Especially if you're able to wash a bunch of it away now then it may not hurt you that much in the long run. Often when people run into problems with too much green growth and no blooms it's because they're fertilizing on a frequent basis with something that has a higher N level--I'm not sure a 1 time application like this would be enough to cause a lot of bloom problems.

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