fertilizing

Fertilizer

Up, Down, and all Around

A common way of describing the purpose behind each chemical is to think “up, down, and all around.”

Hibiscus                                                                          17 - 5 -24                                                                                 

Nitrogen (N), the first chemical listed, helps with plant growth above ground. Nitrogen does a great job of promoting the green leafy growth of foliage, and provides the necessary ingredients to produce lush green lawns. Lawn fertilizers will frequently have a high first number for this purpose.

Phosphorus (P), the middle number, is very effective at establishing growth below ground, in the form of healthy root systems. It is also the component most responsible for flower blooms and fruit production. You’ll notice that fertilizers designed for flower production, or starter-type fertilizers for your lawn, have a high middle number.

Potassium (K), the last number listed, is considered important for overall plant health. This is primarily due to its ability to help build strong cells within the plant tissue. In turn, the plants withstand various stresses, such as heat, cold, pests, and diseases. For example, winterizer fertilizers will have a high component of potassium.

Banana peels

October

2025

New from Sweet Bay Nursery, a present from Bethia:

Rain lilies.  They need moist shade.  I'll put them near the oak in front.

Beach creeper and beach elder. Will spread. In front of the dwarf palm 

Dwarf blueberry.  2 to 3 feet, sun and moist.  Next to the tea bush

Coontie.  Slow growing. In front, city strip.S

Sea lavender. Melanie's side strip

2021

Tea olive

Tea olive can be grown in full sun or partial shade, though plants growing in deeper shade may become spindly. The plants prefer a well-drained soil and are fairly drought tolerant once established.

Because of its natural columnar shape, tea olive requires only minimal pruning, though gardeners may choose to prune the plant in order to encourage branching. Plants may grow up to 8 feet wide and reach 4 to 30 feet in height depending on the cultivar, but they can also be pruned into a small tree if space is limited.

2019

New Plants

Supercal Petchoa -- so pretty!

These pansies and celosia are so pretty together (with a purple in for color) that I can't bear to stick them in a planter. But I really should, they deserve it. Update: in a planter, they've really taken off and filled in.

Water often, fertilize monthly. Got at Lowes for $6.98  They're my planters for this month.  They're a hybrid of petunias.

Nora Grant ixora finally recovered from its transplant last month and has put out a little bloom. It looks a bit more orangy than the original pink blooms I fell in love with. ???

The milkweed in the front yard is blooming mightily, this 10/18.  Must keep an eye on it so I can harvest the seeds in the milk pods.

The Ganges primrose is coming into bloom.  

Who knew? Fig trees are deciduous. I nearly yanked mine out because it lost all its leaves. It's getting its new set just now, at the tips of all its branches.

To do: Buy pansies, snapdragon, petunias, kale. Cut back the periwinkles or vincas or whatever they are. Update: Haven't done this yet. Still soooo hot.

75 degree weather. After planting snapdragons in a full sun with well-draining soil, snapdragon care should include a few well-placed clips to manipulate this plant into a bushy, filled-out specimen. Clip the top stem and any long side shoots to encourage more flowers and more attractive planting. Tall varieties of snapdragons may require staking to remain upright. When blooms begin to fade due to summer’s heat, clip the plant by one-third to one-half and expect more blooms when temperatures begin to cool in fall. Intermingle plantings of snapdragon with heat-loving Angelonia for a similarly formed plant in the summer flower bed. Further care of snapdragons includes appropriate watering. When growing snapdragon, keep moist for the first few weeks. Once established, snapdragon care includes regular watering. Provide approximately an inch of water per week in times of no rainfall. Water near the crown of the plant and avoid overhead watering to keep your snapdragon healthy. Once established, let the soil dry about an inch deep before watering. Snapdragon care includes the removal of spent blooms. Mulch is appropriate when growing snapdragon. Though mostly sold as an annual, proper care of snapdragons may encourage them to return next year, as they are actually a short-lived perennial plant.

Read more at Gardening Know How: Planting Snapdragons In The Garden: How To Grow Snapdragons https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/snapdragon/growing-snapdragon.htm

Pansies -- more shade

August

2021

Swapped some rainbow flamingos very happily with Carlos Hector Delgado for Schomburgkia Tibicinis

2020

8/22/2020 Propagating silver leaf tea plants. Started five.

I've been swapping; sea grape seedings brought me herbs, and native porterweed went for a ICE CREAM BEAN TREE??? From Lisa Bilz

Hoping the perennial peanut will take off. 

Time for: order vegetable seeds from Baker Seed Heirloom Seed, Lisadia Ganda de Gandia eggplants, purple dragon carrots.  Check it out at http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/

For inspiration

2019

Area	Upkeep:	New plantings:	Plans & Dreams
Zone 1 Kuan Yi garden	Macho fern or Fishtail fern nephrolepsis biserrata and bamboo need weeding/cutting back. Otherwise looks good.		Patio furniture! Plants in pots
Zone 2 Left garden Bench&tree	Remove one of the porterweeds. Cut back everything else	Native porterweed doesn't look good. Fig struggling.	Bare center strip?
Zone 3 Right garden	Keeping that primrose at bay.		Almost ready for fall flowers!
City strip			Missing butterfly cassia
Zone 4 Palm tree garden	Separate sanseverria and form better shaped bed around palm	Sedum rupestre
Zone 5 Backdoor path, lemon tree	Daylilies bloomed nicely. Variegated sanseverria OK	Coleus. Sedum rupestre
Zone 6 sunny backyard	Maple is struggling.
Zone 6 Shady	Keep hacking at those little trees	Cardboard fern? Elephant ears, caladium azalea, fine.	?????
Garage mess			Solidify?

So much rain makes me so lazy.  I just stay inside and miss out on the weeding and transplanting and fertilizing.  Resolution: use the early evening. 

Planted some salvia to complete three clumps in the front yard: bush daisies, pink vinca and blue salvia.  

How to Grow Salvia

1. Add a thin layer of mulch around the plant to retain moisture and control weeds.
2. Keep soil moist through the growing season.
3. Remove faded flowers to encourage continuous blooming.
4. Wait until new growth begins in early spring to remove old stems.
5. Divide perennial salvias every 3 years.

Used my birthday chainsaw to attack the sea grapes. 

Florida native plants

www.pinellasnativeplants.org

Recommended here, and from UK research: 75% native, 25% non.  https://www.pennlive.com/gardening/2015/10/save_the_pollinators_its_not_a.html

Wildflowers

Bidens Alba

Nothing attracts more butterflies and bees than a simple white flower called bidens alba.

Also called romerillo, beggar’s tick, Spanish needle or monkey’s lice, this Florida native wildflower is the third most reliable source of nectar for pollinators in our state. There would be many starving bees and butterflies if not for the bidens family of flowers. 

Tasselflower So glad to learn their name.

Spiderwort.  What an ugly name.  It must be because of the root system, which is octopus like and impossible to eradicate. The advantages of never mowing my lawn, I've got plenty of it.  It is a beautiful blue though.

Dandelion. So shoot me, but I think of it as a wildflower and not a weed.  

Flax harbingers the spring, shooting up everywhere.

Coastal plain hawkseed (who thinks up these names?) or dandelion? 

May

2021

Fertilize: Organic/natural fertilizers often use alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, or fish emulsion to provide nitrogen; bone meal or rock phosphate to provide phosphorus; and kelp meal or granite meal to provide potassium. 

• Nitrogen (N): Promotes lush foliage growth
• Phosphorus or Phosphate (P): Promotes blooming and fruit formation
• Potassium or Potash (K): Develops healthy root systems

2020

What a month! Thanks to Bethia Marie's new gardening zeal, I've been to three new nurseries and she's bought me many beautiful new plants! My front yard looks like a crazy quilt of flowers and my backyard is starting to shape up.

First outing after coronavirus to Willow Tree:

passion vine, passiflora incarnata

purple fountain grass

cosmos -- so frilly and pretty. GET THESE NEXT YEAR
zinnias -- not blooming yet

5/14 Marty helped me plant the purple fountain grass today. Still not sure about where to put the passion vine. The Virginia creeper is so happy on the fence, but then, it would be, it's an uninvited guest.

5/19 Went to Sweet Bay Nursery with Bethia, just lovely.  

Bahama Cassia: 3 to 9 feet, 3 to 5 in sun, fall flowering, drought tolerant, sandy soil OK.

Bee Balm

5/29 Bethia's generosity and new gardening schemes sure are great for my garden. Many new plants. Very purple vincas, never saw anything like them.

Gazania. Helped her put in her front garden yesterday. Many plantings, cocoplum bushes, cassia, firebush, firecracker, etc. etc.  She only likes yellows, reds, oranges. Absolutely no pinks.  Funny because I don't like reds. 

5/30 Finished off the bed by the garage: cranberry hibiscus (still very small), purple fountain grass, whiskers deep rose gaura, and then a couple little iresine to finish off.  Kind of good.  

2019

Since it only rained once while we were away, the yard wasn't too too awful, just pretty awful.  Much weeding to be done, and of course it's very hot by 11:00, but luckily my winter habit of lolling around in the morning was broken while we were overseas with much to see so that I can now easily hop out of bed and head out of doors to put in a few hours.

Cheltenham was full of parks with beds of tulips just at their best.  So when I come home to find the caladiums in full leaf, I'm very happy. 

Thinking of weedeating front yard to tidy things up and keep ganges primrose down. They've been blooming nonstop since November. I keep waiting for them to calm down so I can clip them and it's just not happening.  
To-Do list when coming home from England.

• visit the garden up the street at about 6th Avenue and 38th street for ideas
• visit Wilcox nursery and buy buy buy.  Cassia to replace the spindly plants in front yard. 5/15 bought Florida porterweed, maypop passion vine, gallardia, two pots of yellow cutleaf coneflower
• work on your beds
• propagate the Persian shield -- it's a perennial and looks great with the Ganges. done 5/13
• dig up the asparagus fern and other invasives

Very early planting calendar

Area	Upkeep:	New plantings:	Plans & Dreams
Zone 1 Kuan Yi garden	Some weeding. Pruned a tiny bit. sedum morganianum or Burro’s tail name of hanging cactus. Passion vine & monarchs. (Trim after blooming.) Bougainvillea. Macho fern or Fishtail fern nephrolepsis biserrata.	Hung orchid outside window. Put coleus in planters there	Ladder? Clean up? Planting outside window
Zone 2 Left garden Bench&tree	Weeding. Daylilies bloomed all month beautifully in peach. “Sapphire showers” Duranta by door. 10 to 20’ tall. Bloom spring-fall. Foxtail fern	Caladiums & coleus coming up. Purple duranta around door doing OK.Bloom Time: Late Summer/Early Fall	Bare center strip?
Zone 3 Right garden	May 23 weed ate the tops off the mimosa. Looks nice. Orange tree OK. “Sapphire showers” duranta by door.		Beds messy
City strip	Weeding around mimosa. Golden dewdrop ‘Cuban Gold’ Flor Celeste is holding its own. 2-4’. Blooms spring-fall? Butterfly cassia,10-12’. Fall bloom.	Vincas pooped out totally. Butterfly cassia OK. Society garlic struggling. Duranta struggling.	Mimosa fill in.
Zone 4 Sunflower garden	Keep that sunflower hacked back.	Sedum rupestre	Maybe plant some purple queen there? Or blue porterweed?
Zone 5 Backdoor path, lemon tree & roses	Blue porterweed coming back. Daylilies bloomed nicely.	Coleus. Sedum rupestre
Zone 6 sunny backyard	Blueberries struggling along ago. Green beans & peas perished. Dark angel dahlia, dahlia hybrid. Blooms summer to fall, full sunn, 12”. Dark angel dahlia:heather on each side; coleus on each side; purple queen on each side.	Incredibly beautiful hibiscus in center. Very nice little garden coming along: dahlia, heather, coleus & purple queen. Sweet. Sedum rupuestre underneath hibiscus.
Zone 6 Shady	Cardboard fern? Zamia furfuracea. 4”. Making come back. Sanseveria trifecta (mother in law’s tongue)	Caladiums coming up. Set up birdbath	?????
Garage mess			Solidify?