How To Feed Phlox?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Phlox are the favorite garden flowers that invariably delight us with their wonderful flowering from the beginning of summer until the first frost. Despite the fact that phloxes are very unpretentious flowers, they also need feeding. However, giving them top dressing is not at all difficult, the main thing is to clearly know when exactly they should be offered

When and how to feed?

So that handsome phloxes annually delight us with their amazing flowering, it is important to learn how to feed them correctly. All feeding of wonderful flowers is inextricably linked with the phases of their development, of which they have as many as three. The first is the phase of active growth; entering it, phloxes begin to actively absorb moisture and nitrogen. The second phase falls on the period of budding and flowering: marvelous flowers begin to consume less nitrogen, but at the same time their need not only for phosphorus, but also for potassium increases. And the third phase covers the period from the end of flowering to the ripening of tiny seeds - at this time, there is an active accumulation of all kinds of nutrient compounds in the seeds, roots and rhizomes, and to accelerate the process of protein formation, graceful phlox begin to actively absorb phosphorus.

Vegetating phloxes are fed usually in five to six visits. By the way, these luxurious flowers are equally grateful for both root and foliar feeding. The very first top dressing is offered to them after the snow melts and the first tiny shoots begin to form - during this period phlox pamper complex fertilizers that look like granules. Around this time, flower plantations should be slightly loosened and mulched with a fertile substrate. In the absence of such, you can use compost, and if there is not even one, you can take absolutely any substrate or sand, only first you need to put crushed lawn grass under them (with a layer of about three centimeters). Mulching will be extremely important for flowers that have reached three or four years of age.

Approximately at the end of May, the phlox are given another top dressing - this time the beautiful flowers are fed with mullein infusion (in a ratio of 1:10) with the addition of ash, as well as nitroammofoska or Kemira Universal (half a tablespoon is taken for each bucket of water). If it is very problematic to get such a fertilizer, it is quite acceptable to replace it with a solution of a good complex mineral fertilizer. And sometimes on sale you can find containers with a ready-made mullein solution in combination with potassium humate.

Then feeding is carried out either in mid-June (early phloxes are treated with it), or closer to its end (for late flowers). In general, the composition of the top dressing may be identical to the previous one, but it does not hurt to increase the dosage of vital potash fertilizers (a glass of ash or potassium sulfate is added to a bucket of water - about 10 g). And somewhere in the middle of June, it will not hurt to pamper phlox with useful foliar feeding (a weak solution of the notorious urea).

At the very beginning of July, a fourth feeding is also given - with similar fertilizers, but this time in tandem with superphosphate (10 - 15 g). And the early varieties are treated with high-quality complex fertilizers. Towards the end of July, before the start of mass flowering, the flowers are again given complex mineral fertilizers. As for the specimens characterized by late flowering, they are given a similar top dressing closer to mid-August. In the same period, early blooming phloxes are treated with phosphorus-potassium fertilizers (ten grams of potassium salt and twenty grams of superphosphate are taken for a bucket of water). Or you can simply dig in the ash, combined with double superphosphate, into the soil between the bushes and water it well. It is noteworthy that the early varieties of spectacular flowers respond perfectly to high-quality nitrogen-potassium supplements, while the later varieties prefer nitrogen-phosphorus.

Rules for feeding

It is advisable to give phlox any top dressing only in the evenings. As for liquid root dressings, they are offered to these beautiful flowers only after very abundant watering. It makes sense to give dry dressings only before heavy rain. But if you plan to carry out foliar feeding, then the rain that has passed immediately after it will instantly make it absolutely useless.

And the last rule - everything is fine in moderation: phloxes will not appreciate either an overdose of nutrient compounds, or their deficiency!