A Warning About Fertilizing

I want to take just a minute to offer a warning about fertilizing for those of you who may use Miracle-Gro. We've seen several cases this spring of overdosed hanging baskets--all fed with Miracle-Gro. If you've got a hanging basket that looks wilted but has never seriously dried out (and may currently not be drinking at all) and you're fertilizing regularly, it could easily be that you've over-fertilized.

Whether it's "operator error" or a bad batch of Miracle-Gro that many of our customers have bought is hard to tell--without doing some real investigative work, we can't determine the exact source of the problem. What we can tell, though, is that with proper care, we've been able to revive a couple of fertilizer-damaged baskets brought in by our customers, so it's not the plants that are the problem but rather the care they've received.

If you think your baskets might be suffering from fertilizer damage, continue to water somewhat regularly to try to leech the extra chemicals out of the soil. Don't continue to fertilize, hoping it might "come around." Only fertilize when it's begun to show significant new growth or when the foliage starts to yellow.

When you do start to fertilize again, we highly recommend Jack's Classic. Scroll through this blog and you'll find plenty of recommendations for Jack's--we truly believe in the value of high-quality plant food! Like Miracle-Gro, it's a water-soluble fertilizer, but Jack's uses professional-grade ingredients and formulations, ensuring higher quality plant food and better results in the health and vitality of your plants.

Whatever fertilizer you choose to use, remember this: more is not always better. Be careful to follow instructions faithfully--if the package says to feed once a week, don't expect better growth with twice-a-week fertilizing!