March is the month generally set aside to begin feeding many of the trees and shrubs in the garden. Early spring feeding will help get them off to a good growing start early in the season.
Since they're so low-maintenance, it is easy to forget that trees and shrubs need care too. In addition to light and water, they need a regular diet of minerals and other elements. You can ensure that your trees and shrubs grow large and stay healthy and beautiful with a regular feeding program.
Trees and shrubs grow during spring and early summer. They become dormant during late fall and practically stop growing during winter. Some indicators that your trees and shrubs may be stressed and could benefit from a regular fertilizer feeding include:
• Annual twig growth was short.
• Leaves were light-green or yellow.
• Leaves appear smaller than normal.
• Leaves were shed during the growing season.
• Branch tips appear to be dying back.
• Foliage appears wilted.
• Leaves have an abnormal amount of dead spots.
• Production of leaves and/or flowers was less than normal.
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What Kind of Fertilizer?
The question most often asked about spring feeding is, "What kind of fertilizer do I use for this or that plant?" Spring feeding of individual plants is simple, if you will follow this general rule:
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Evergreen trees and shrubs, including rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas, juniper cypress and broad-leaf evergreens, are fertilized with an acid loving plant fertilizer.
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Deciduous trees and shrubs, which includes fruit, flowering and shade trees, roses, lilacs, forsythia, etc. are all fed with a rose or general garden-type fertilizer. (Deciduous refers to trees and shrubs that lose their leaves during the winter.)
Common Methods to Fertilize Trees and Shrubs
Feeder roots of trees and shrubs are in a wide area from the drip-line (tips of farthest-spreading branches) about halfway to the trunk and that same distance beyond the end of the limbs. So apply fertilizer in the feeder-root zone, a doughnut shape around and beyond shrubs and trees.
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Surface Applications: Granular or diluted liquid fertilizer is spread across the soils surface. Rainfall and/or irrigation move the nutrients down to the root zone.
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Soil Injections
: This is done by placing the fertilizer into the soil around the root zone of the tree.
This is a preferred method where grass is growing underneath a tree and placement of the fertilizer into the soil will allow the the tree roots to utilize the fertilizer instead of the grass roots.
Tree fertilizer spikes accomplish this by being driven into the soil deep enough to be below the grass roots.
Liquid fertilizer soil injection is done by dissolving fertilizer into water and then injecting it into the soil around the root zone of the tree. A common tool for the homeowner to use is the Ross Root Feeder.
Read the Label. Always apply fertilizer as directed on the package.
