I bought 2 Forever & Ever and 1 Endless Summer [the original] last year.
Is Holly Tone the best fertilizer? I also have Rose Tone, Bulb Tone, Flower Tone, [ &Tree Tone] on hand. (So far, have been loyal Espoma fan.)
Most important: When to fertilize? I am Zone 5b/6a. My frost- free date is May 15. As of right now, the shrubs have just teeny bits of new growth appearing. Should I put down my fertilizer now, or should I wait until May 15?
I left some blossoms on for "winter interest". I will cut them off and do a teeny bit of very light pruning. When would I do it? Now, or wait til frost-free date?
The site is a little bit sheltered by other houses, some evergreens. I failed to give them a winter mulch. . . Next year i'll give them the recommended 4 inch organic mulch; i'll be using shredded oak leaves. Would you advise more protection than that, e.g. a burlap windbreak, or a burlap circle filled with unshredded oak leaves?
Very grateful for advice, it'll be so exciting if I can have hydrangeas blooming in the garden!
Thanks,
Ella
newbie, please advise me
Ella,
I don't fertilize mine, I just load them up with composte and lots of organic mulch. For winter protection I just bury the whole plant in a pile of leaves after the ground is frozen. If you feel you have to fertilize I'd use something organic like fish meal, seaweed, worm castings etc. Manure in great, after the ground is frozen. Its like when you feed your kids. If you give them a good healthy start from the beginnig ie mummy eats right, sleeps right, doesn't smoke or drink ETOH before and while they're in the tummy, breast feeds when they're born and gives them a good healthy diet low in animal products (you don't need to eat dairy products to get Ca and you don't need meat to get B vit), high in whole grains etc they grow and do fine without Flintstones chewables.
Plants are the same. Build your soil the way G-d intended and they're going to do great for you.
I'm holding off on the pruning for now. I'm just pulling off the mulch this week and I'm going to wait and see howmany buds I have. So far on some I have living buds right up to the terminal point, so hold on as long as you can. I know it looks messy, but it's worth it.
Yehudith
Agree with you about animal products, we are almost vegetarian. It's healthier, and more humans are fed with fewer acres that way, etc., etc.
We are big on composting (no organic waste leaves our yard), and we have a shredder---shredded leaves get used as mulch and also as the brown material for the compost piles. I generally put a lot of compost in every planting hole. Haven't gotten in the habit of using it as mulch yet.
But I am also big on the Espoma fertilizers. They make all the "Tone" products. They are all organic. And I learned a couple weeks ago they have switched from half synthetic half natural to 100% natural, effective with the new 2009 stock at my local nursery (garden center). And now they have about 15 living organisms in them to enrich the soil. First I need to use up the bags I have on hand. Then subsequent purchases willl be fertilizing with 100% natural 100% organic!
Incidentally, I discovered a couple days ago that I cut one of my hydrangeas down when I was cutting back dead perennial stalks 2 or 3 weeks ago. I cut all the stems back to about 5 inches high when I did clean-up on that row of perennials. I'm supposedly creating a "mixed border" so i guess I better do a better job of keeping brain turned on when I do garden clean-up! Good thing Hydr. flowers on new growth.
Your hydrangeas should do great then. I remember one my mother had when I was a kid. That thing was hugh. I used to climb up in it like it was a tree and it had the biggest flowers. All it got was what Mother Nature gave it. It was under a monster oak tree and if leaves didn't fall on it it didn't get mulched, if it didn't rain it didn't get watered. The thing was there when she bought the house and the house was well well over 100 years old. It finally died when the oaktree got struck by lightning and came down on it when I was in my late teens.
Did your family grieve over that oak tree? I sure did when an unusual wind gust took out my old leaning oak. A beckoning shady path led under that leaning oak and around behind some firs - a mysterious, magical scene. The stump is still there and shows the tree was about 4 feet across but hollow. When it fell, it crushed the 10 fir trees and all my compost piles. What a mess. I was teary-eyed for days and days. That was roughly ten years ago, and I am finally emotionally "ready" to have the stump ground out, I think. I'll have to lift out all the perennials around it to prepare for the stump grinding, which will be a huge job, but then I'll have room to re-jigger my paths through that area and put in something substantial like a large hydrangea, holly, boxwood, etc.
