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phosperpus fertilizer
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Posted by laurie_2 new south wales (My Page) on Sat, Sep 18, 04 at 1:57
| I am confused I have been told to use non phosperous fertiliser on my Waratah ,yet it says on tag use blood ad\nd bone ,. My blood and bone bag says it comtains phosperous Can anybody tell me what is the right thing to do Laurie 2 |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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hi laurie I cant help you re fertiliser but we have a waratah that is about 3 metres high and we dont feed it anything ,just an occassional water and some mulch well away from the trunk and it is growing beautifully and is full of flower buds at the moment, good luck
lorraine |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| Yeah, I was often stumped by this one. It seems the phosphorus in Blood and Bone is released to the soil very slowly. Although you should apply a relatively small amount of B & B around natives. These days if I need to apply some nutrient, I just apply the slow release granular stuff that is specifically for natives. However most of my natives get the same treatment as Lorraines. That is, just mulch and the occasional water. |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| I also was curious about this so I asked the lady where I bought all my Natives, she told me not to use blood and bone for the same reason, just to use the slow release native fertlizer as Robert said. But then I dont fertilize any of my natives, and here the soil is hard with only one lot of rain in five months, so all mine get is tap water same as Lorraine's but more often, and they look OK. They are well mulched . MM. |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| Stick with fertilisers with less than 2% phosphorus. This applies to most proteaceae plants. Garry |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| Most fertilisers have a phosphorous content of 6% or more. Most of our natives like the phosphorous content of its fertilisers to be below 3% of which Blood and bone is one. |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| The P in blood & bone is bound up in insoluble bone mineral and as you are aware it takes a long time for bones to decay. Hence the P is released very slowly. |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| I used to work as a scientist for one of the big fertiliser companies. I know the composition of most formulations. Many companies use bone material, composted sewage and superphosphate or hi-analysis phosphorus fertilisers to get the p level up. The registered N:P:K for Blood and Bone is 5%:5%:0. Keep it away from native plants. In fact try to minimise use of fertilisers full stop. One of the reasons that I left this industry is the adverse environmental effects of mining, manufacturing and indiscriminant use of fertilisers. |
RE: phosperpus fertilizer
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| Danili has the correct info. Use fertilisers with less than 3% on natives and you will have no problem. No plant requires NO phosphorous. Proteaceae such as Waratahs have extremely efficient roots and can extract tiny amounts of phosphorous, so they overdose very easily. |
RE: phosphorus fertilizer
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| I'm sorry, but applying a 6% P fertiliser at half the rate of a 3% fertiliser will have the same effect unless one breaks down faster. The breakdown rate is independant of the application rate. A lot of what is said about P and natives is complete crap afaict. There was a study some years back by King's Park or CSIRO on the tolerance to P by a wide range of natives. Except for a few rare cases (and none of which are common in gardens) all the plants could tolerate reasonable ranges of P; much like any other garden plant. The list of plants that couldn't tolerate any P was quite short, most plants either ignored it or grew better. I have never killed a proteaceae family member using B&B or even 'grow plus' which is a relatively high P, high solubility fertilizer. I have killed grevilleas with over-watering, under-watering, too much sun, too little sun and over-pruning however :) |
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