How to bury the bottom fertilizer for potted roses
This article focuses on the explanation of how to bury the bottom fertilizer for potted roses, and will take everyone to understand together.
How to bury the bottom fertilizer for potted roses
This period, most of the roses in various regions have started to sprout rapidly. If your roses have not been repotted in time during winter, you can still seize the last opportunity to repot them now. When repotting roses, it is necessary to add bottom fertilizer. Today, I want to talk about some precautions when adding bottom fertilizer to roses.
Precautions for using bottom fertilizer when repotting roses
There have been many discussions on the operation and precautions of repotting roses, but many friends may have missed them or forgotten them. Those who want to see detailed repotting operations can refer to the book "How to Raise Exploded Roses from Scratch" or check historical articles. Today, I will focus on three detail issues of bottom fertilizer use.
1. The choice of bottom fertilizer
What kind of fertilizer can be used as bottom fertilizer, this is something we must clarify. Why do we need to add bottom fertilizer when repotting? Bottom fertilizer is the basic fertilizer for the vigorous growth of potted plants for a year, ensuring the basic food for the plant throughout the four seasons.
Therefore, the fertilizer that can be used as bottom fertilizer must be very durable. Long-lasting fertilizer efficacy means a slow release rate. What comes to your mind then?
Slow-release fertilizer? The long-lasting effect of slow-release fertilizer makes it suitable for use as bottom fertilizer. Many flower friends who grow potted plants on their balconies like to use slow-release fertilizer as bottom fertilizer. Slow-release fertilizer can be used as bottom fertilizer, but it is not the best choice.
Plants need a variety of nutrients, and slow-release fertilizer is a synthetic fertilizer, so it's like the difference between taking vitamin pills and eating fruits and vegetables. The nutritional components are limited to artificial additions and are not comprehensive.
Better bottom fertilizer should be fermented organic fertilizer!
Organic fertilizers not only contain the three major nutrients needed for plant growth: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but also many trace elements and organic matter, which is something synthetic fertilizers cannot match.
However, it should be noted that among fermented organic fertilizers, solid granular organic fertilizers are better, with more durable effects. Of course, powder can also be used, but semi-solid cannot, such as fermented fish intestine residue.
Many flower friends have heard that burying fish intestines for roses can make them bloom more, so they will deliberately use fish intestine residue as bottom fertilizer. However, this semi-solid organic fertilizer is very likely to cause fertilizer damage.
Liquid fertilizers can be regarded as fast-acting fertilizers, and semi-solid organic fertilizers are essentially high-concentration liquid fertilizers, which are very dangerous and fatal for newly repotted seedlings.
In the third session of the Home Flower Training Camp, some students encountered black stems in winter when planting bare-root roses, and the reason was the use of semi-solid fish intestine residue as bottom fertilizer.
If you still have doubts about whether "compound fertilizer can be used as bottom fertilizer," I suggest you learn from the book "How to Raise Exploded Roses from Scratch" or read the synchronized teaching material of the Home Flower Training Camp "Blast Your Potted Plants from Scratch" to find the answer.
There are many types of fermented organic fertilizers, and the nutritional content of different organic fertilizers will also vary. You can choose or mix different organic fertilizers according to the different nutrient needs of different plants. For example, mixing fermented sheep manure with bone meal is a good bottom fertilizer scheme for roses.
2. Do not directly contact the root system
No matter which fertilizer is used as bottom fertilizer, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that it should not directly contact the roots of the roses when planting.
Therefore, we usually place the bottom fertilizer at the bottom of the flowerpot and separate the fertilizer from the rose roots with soil, or mix it directly into the potting soil. Mixing it into the soil means more soil and less fertilizer, which reduces the probability of the roots directly contacting the fertilizer and is a relatively safe method.
If we do not separate the fertilizer from the roots when applying the bottom fertilizer at home, it is easy to cause fertilizer damage. Severe fertilizer damage can cause black stems, and less severe cases can cause black new buds or malformed new leaves.
Previously, when repotting roses, I mixed fermented sheep manure and calcium magnesium phosphorus (a type of water-insoluble flower fertilizer) as bottom fertilizer, and used a large amount. These days, the roses have sprouted, and I found that two pots of roses have suffered fertilizer damage.
Thinking back, all the potted roses had a very high amount of bottom fertilizer when repotted. The two pots with fertilizer damage were exactly the ones where a large amount of bottom fertilizer was added to the side of the pot, directly contacting the roots.
Because the flowerpots were too small, I thought of adding more bottom fertilizer, so I added a lot of bottom fertilizer on the side when filling the soil, directly covering the roots, and now the sprouts are burnt and the new leaves are malformed, which can be understood.
So, don't learn from me. When adding bottom fertilizer, it is still necessary to follow the normal operation procedure to avoid direct contact with the roots.
3. Caution when using bottom fertilizer for ground-planted and bare-root roses
If we are planting bare-root roses, I personally suggest not adding bottom fertilizer when potting. We can first plant them in a smaller pot, and after the roses are alive, we can change to a larger pot with the original soil ball and then add bottom fertilizer during the growing period.
If bottom fertilizer is added at the beginning of planting, improper operation can easily cause black stems. The same is true when planting roses in the ground. We can first plant them without adding bottom fertilizer and then shallowly bury the fertilizer around the roots after they are alive.
Many people misunderstand that bottom fertilizer must be placed at the bottom, which is not the case. This understanding is one-sided. It is just a habit to put the fertilizer at the bottom of the pot when potting, which is why it is called bottom fertilizer, not that it must be placed below. Burying it shallowly around the roots is the same.
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