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Planting The Garden PondControlling Growth>FertilizersCompostWhen to PlantPlanting the TropicalsPlanting in Shallow WaterIf you live on a dairy farm or have a friend who does, your best bet is natural fertilizer. That means well-rotted cow manure, one part to three parts of garden soil. Use commercial dried cow manure much more sparingly, at a ratio of one part to eight or ten parts of soil, or 4 quarts to 1 bushel of soil. 'Never use fresh manure of any kind. It will sour whatever soil it is put into, color pool water to a point of unsightliness, and probably promote a quick and heavy growth of green slime. Next best-and I place them second on the list only because you can't get them free-are the various commercial fertilizers offered by most water-lily dealers. The one we recommend to our customers is a 10-10-10 mixture-that is, 10 units of nitrogen, 10 of superphosphate, and 10 of potash. Such fertilizers come with explicit mixing instructions, most of them prescribing about a pound or a "double handful" to each container of soil. All-purpose commercial mixtures also are satisfactory applied at about the same ratio. Many water gardeners prefer bone meal, a good-sized double handful of it to each plant container. It is a good fertilizer, but I don't recommend it too strongly, since water-lilies can’t seem to do as well on its phosphates as they can on manure, prepared fertilizers, and other richer nitrogenous compounds. Blood meal is probably as good as any other available water-lily fertilizer. GARDEN POOLS, WATER-LILIES, AND GOLDFISH lizer, but it requires a certain amount of forethought. Add about a quart of it to each bushel of soil and, for best results, do this mixing two or three weeks ahead of planting. I get letters now and then from water gardeners who report they are producing healthy lilies with a one-to-ten mixture of dried sheep manure and garden soil. I also hear from gardeners who c1aim wondrous results from horse manure mixed with soil. I would just have to see good results from these fertilizers with lilies before I'd believe them. I have seen too many plantings killed by sheep and horse manure. I advise against experimenting with other manures, for most of them decompose so rapidly they produce enough heat to bum roots. Poultry guano makes a particularly hot fertilizer. Also, never add lime to the soil for water-lilies. REPOTTING AND HUNGER SIGNS
Most gardeners look upon tropical water-lilies as annuals, let them die when winter comes, and order new plants in spring. A few take some of their tropicals indoors at the end of the season and propagate them during the winter. In either case, tropical water-lilies must be set out anew in the pool each summer. And they must be set out, of course, in a fresh supply of soil and fertilizer. Hardy water-lilies may be left in the pool from one year to the next, but the gardener must remember to repot them occasionally. A hardy lily planted in barely a cubic foot of soil and fertilizer may have to have its food supply replenished even after one season. If planted in something more capacious, say a container holding a cubic foot and a half or more of soil, then a hardy lily probably will do well for two or three seasons-even longer-without a change of soil. It is good to lift the hardies up every three or four years, whether they seem to need it or not, to prune them down a bit, and to aim a few of the growing points from the rootstocks. Occasionally there are signs of "hunger" -leaves much smaller than they should be and of a sickly yellow color, small blooms and not many of them, or general apathy and lack of healthy growth and expansion. It is dangerous to uproot a lily and replant it in a box of fresh soil and fertilizer in the middle of its growing season, but it is easy enough to give hungry plants additional food without disturbing them. Make "vitamin pills" for them as large as grapefruit by mixing bone meal with just enough clay to bind it. Without lifting the lily container from position, thrust one of the pills next to the roots. Very large plants should get two such pills. 0r make an even quicker pill by putting a good handful of blood mea1 into a paper bag, and thrust the bag into the soil beneath a root. The good results of either treatment will show in a few days. Continue to Compost |
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