Show #25/7612. A Display Garden With The Latest Container Designs

Choosing The Best Fertilizer For Containers

Eric would like to talk about fertilization. And this is a mistake he's made many, many times. He sees his plant looking a little chlorotic, the leaves are a little yellow. You've got to be careful not to be too heavy handed. Number one, you're going to do better with a slow release fertilizer because it lasts a lot longer than the liquids do. Find one that releases the nutrients based on time and not on water. It's also well worth investing in higher quality fertilizers. We don't have to get into all the details as to why, but there are different qualities of nitrogen. The sources of nitrogen fertilizer actually make a big difference. Fertilizers with mostly ammoniacal nitrogen, can actually be very toxic to a plant. That big flush of growth that you see is the plant moving that nitrogen out of its system, because it actually is slightly toxic to the plant. So if you overdo it, especially with the cheaper fertilizers that are designed for grass it's very easy to burn a plant with the cheap fertilizers. Long term fertilizer, say like six months slow release fertilizer is a lot safer.