bookiemom

Worrywart: many (most?) experienced perennial gardeners will tell you not to use commercial fertilizer, but instead to add to your soil to improve it through natural methods. This means adding an inch or so of compost (you can buy it in big bags) to your beds each season. This is really better for your plants...your garden's future...the planet...

worrywart

Ok, bookiemom, I'm truly a novice here. When you say to add an inch, do you mean to the top surface or do I need to work it in? If the latter, how do I do that without uprooting my plants? I need a step by step.

SuNa

I also need a step by step. My two peonies barely bloomed this year, and I haven't moved them for years. I think it's a fertilizer issue.

bookiemom

Oh, dear, I'm not any sort of expert. I don't know about peonies. All plants need their surrounding dirt renewed so they have fresh nutrients in there. The dirt gets depleted and so needs to be amended. If you work on improving the soil, then you don't have to keep pouring fertilizer on your plants.

You are supposed to spread the compost all around the plants on the surface and lightly work it into the soil with one of those fork-shaped gardening tools, I believe. Not right around each plant, so you don't disturb the roots. In the fall application, this will get washed down into the soil somewhat by the rain.

When you plant new plants, that is why you dig the hole larger than the root ball, and then put the best dirt you can afford in with the plant. That is your best time to influence the future growth of the plant.

bookiemom

Hey Woorywart and SuNa,
Have I got a site for you! Check this out:

http://www.organicgardening.com/

There are sections on:
--Fertilizing Your Garden
--Confessions of a Novice Gardener
--and Garden Girl: Solutions to Common Garden Problems

You can look up more about compost and improving your soil. It tells how to make your own bags of compost with bags of leaves.

Happy reading; happy gardening.

dmd77

There is no need to work compost into the soil if you have earthworms. If you don't have earthworms, you're using way too much fertilizer. I add two-three inches of compost at least once a year--twice a year if I'm feeling flush--and it gets worked in nicely by my earthworms. About once every three or four years I use a nice organic fertilizer like Whitney Farms.

The most common reason peonies will bloom lightly is too much fertilizer, not too little.

Oh, and I find it cheapest to have 10 or 15 cubic yards of compost delivered, not buy it in those little bitty bags!

bandit_TX

Park Seed guarantees all their stock and will replace anything that doesn't make it.

worrywart

Thanks, dmd77. I'm guessing that you don't spread any mulch over your beds once you add compost?

dmd77

I use compost as mulch... bark mulch leaches nutrients from the soil and is terribly expensive besides. I also like to plant fairly closely--to keep down weeds. My sister (in upstate NY, a totally different gardening experience from our mild climate) like to winter-mulch with straw.

worrywart

Good to know. Right now I've got cedar bark in my beds and suspect it may be retaining too much water. My impatiens are turning yellow and dropping leaves.

NYMomof2

Any advice on magnolias? I'd like to put a yellow-flowering small tree in front of our house. I'm looking for interesting bark, and a tree that won't get much higher than 25 feet. I like soft yellows, rather than bright yellow.

DRJ4

Anyone know about Shasta daisies? We planted seeds 2 years ago. I was told they won't bloom the first year if started from seed. They are blooming this year but it's sparse. Should I re-fertilise or is this normal?

Also, Bandit_TX: Do you have a link for Park Seed? Are they in Texas?

SuNa

So basically, I just add compost around my perennials to a depth of an inch or two? And I do this in the fall and again in the spring? And I sort of work it in with a fork-like implement??

I'm thinking it's lack of fertilizer that caused my peonies to send up only a few buds this year, because I certainly haven't added any. The other possible reason, I've read, is that they've become crowded (?) There are only two plants and they've been fine for the last ten years. They're about 12-15 inches apart -- can that become a problem?

dmd77

If they've been fine for ten years and they haven't diminished gradually, I wouldn't worry. Things have good years and bad... They wouldn't suddenly decline. More likely, it's too much or too little rain. My mother's peonies bloomed in the same spot without anything being done for more than thirty years.

bookiemom

SuNa: I asked at our wonderful, huge garden store about my rhododendron that doesn't bloom well. Each year we have fewer blooms. The man I spoke with said I should be using compost once each season--four times a year, I think he meant. Even if you don't work the compost in, it will still help the soil.