This week, it’s time to start fertilizing! Trees and shrubs should be fed now, and then the lawn toward the end of the month. Even your houseplants are hungry after a long, chilly winter! There are a bewildering number of fertilizers on the market, so today, we’re going to talk about the main types you should use in our area. The ideal fertilizer for your plants’ needs will vary by the local soil and water; here, we’re going to talk about our local North Texas conditions.
Everyday trees and shrubs: For most common trees and shrubs, we recommend our Covington’s Tree and Shrub 12-6-6 fertilizer.
Acid-loving plants: Azaleas, gardenias, and camellias should be fed ferti-lome Azalea Food. Other acid lovers (such as loropetalum and Sunshine ligustrums) should be fed Covington’s Tree and Shrub fertilizer. Acid loving plants also need to be fed an acidifier regularly; in addition to the main fertilizers, add Dr. Iron, Ironite, soil sulfur, or aluminum sulfate to keep the soil pH down.
The lawn: We kick off fertilization of the lawn toward the end of March. Our 21-7-14 Premium Lawn Fertilizer is great for the first feeding of the season. For all further feedings this year, you should switch to an all-nitrogen lawn fertilizer like our Covington’s High Performance 25-0-0.
Houseplants: Even-and-balanced water-soluble fertilizer applied once a month.
If you’d like to know exactly what your soil needs for a particular crop and eliminate all guesswork, it’s not hard to do! The Texas A&M Extension does excellent work with fast turn-around times. Send them a sample of soil from a particular area you have questions about, and they can provide you with a detailed analysis that will show which nutrients you need to add, skip, or actively stay away from adding to the soil to succeed. For a quick link to this year’s price sheet and testing instructions, we’ll provide it here: http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/files/urbansoil.pdf. Homeowners will almost never need a test more expensive than twenty dollars.
Burton specializes in diagnosing and solving plant problems. If you have a question for Burton, please email him at burton@covingtonnursery.com and include photos showing the problem.