hi everybody this is Noelle at Petitti's and it is a kind of cool March a day out
there and we wanted to talk a little bit about starting your plants off right so
right now we're talking about established plants plants that have been
growing in your landscape or your garden and when's the time to feed up a lot of
people ask us that question so actually you can start feeding evergreens right
now in March not a problem whatsoever and we often recommend Espoma® Tone
products for organic slow-release very very thorough feeding evergreens you can
start feeding and we use Holly-tone I may pick up Holly tone Holly-tone is for
evergreen plant material or acid loving plant material okay and so this is like
I said a slow-release organic fertilizer that you can apply now to your
established evergreen plants or acid loving plants
and this will last all the way through mid summer so one application now
typically what we're looking for here is as you're going to apply it around the
drip line of your plant material and you apply one cup per branch diameter so
let's say your Weigela is two foot in diameter you're going to apply two cups
around the drip line so just at the edge of the branches on that plant okay
Weigela is not a good example I should have said Juniper let's talk evergreen
Juniper however if you put Holly-tone on a Weigela it would be fine okay so
the Holly-tones are for the evergreens there and you can start feeding your
evergreens now so azaleas rhododendrons Holly
Juniper's Taxus lots of stuff okay so there's - there's plenty that you can feed
out there the counterpart to Holly-tone is going to be plant-tone plant-tone is
a multi-purpose again organic slow-release natural
fertilizer that you can use and we use this on just about everything
else except the acid loving plant material and evergreen plant material so
you can apply a plant tone to your deciduous shrubs now so those are your
shrubs that lose all their leaves you can apply it to perennial plant material
now too after you get out in the garden clean everything up if your pruning now
it's a great time to prune in March if your pruning you can go ahead and after
you're done pruning done cleaning up around the plant material cleaning out
your landscape beds that's when you want to apply your plant-tone okay so again
same thing as a Holly tone you would apply one cup okay one measuring cup
full per foot of diameter branch material with perennials it might be a
little bit less because they're a little bit smaller plant material compared to
your woody trees and shrubs but that's normally how we work so same thing if
you have a Weigela that is two-foot wide you're going to
apply two cups around the drip line of that Weigela perfect plant-tone is
perfect for that the other plant material that you might see popping up
in your garden is going to be your bulbs and bulbs typically they really
appreciate fertilization when you plant them so that's normally in the fall time
you put your bulb-tone or your bio-tone that I'm going to talk about in just a
second in the hole with the bulb okay and then you're gonna go ahead cover it
over water it and then they're sitting there all winter long
but those leaves are emerging now and the crocus have already really come out
in bloom we're just starting to see the daffodils pop up the foliage become very
very active the stems and also the buds so you want to apply bulb-tone in the
spring late winter early spring around those plants those those spring blooming
bulbs also if you are starting dahlias or gladiolas any of those summer
blooming bulbs you can also pop them up now apply
your bulb-tone into those pots and they'll have that nutrients as they
actively start growing so that's something that you can use the bulb-tone
on as well with the bulbs here it's usually about a heaping teaspoon full
per bulb so if you plant them in clusters which we often recommend and
you have let's say three five seven or more bulbs in that hole you might be
using maybe a tablespoon full or a quarter cup full as you start having
larger bulb planting it's okay so just keep that in mind bulb tone is excellent
the last fertilizer that I wanted to talk about for spring is going to be bio-
tone and so the bio-tone is a little bit different from the other tone products
in the respect that this is a plant starter root stimulator type of
fertilizer okay it is organic it does a very good job of helping new plant
material establish their roots but also will help expand their root system so
they're able to absorb more nutrients more moisture everything that they need
out of the soil so when we start to be able to dig and the soil is less money
less squishy when you go out into the garden and you start to dig and the the
water is draining through that's when we can really start planting and this is
the fertilizer that you want to apply to the planting hole place the plant in
that hole backfill okay let that plant get established and then you can put
your plant tone or your Holly-tone or even your bulb-tone around the drip line
of that plant for a later feeding so just so you know bio-tones an awesome
starter we really recommend it highly recommend it and it does really really
well for a spring kind of root starter getting those plants established really
well so again remember your organic slow-release fertilizers
can be applied now plant-tone for any of your deciduous or plant set loser leaves
Holly-tone for any of the evergreen or acid lover type plants and then bulb-
tone again for your spring blooming bulbs enjoy