Hello:
Just bought that Miracle Gro plastic sprayer that attaches to the end of the hose. Comes loaded with their miracle gro fertilizer, also. No idea what the mix is in the fertilizer.
Have never used this before.
Is it perfectly safe to spray Directly on the flowers and buds of oramental shrubs, bushes, and small trees ?
e.g., is directly on the flowers of azaelas, etc. safe ?
Any caveats ?
Thanks, Bob
Supposedly, water droplets on leaves can act like little magnifying glasses and if it's sunny, burn the leaves. I don't know, but why find out? And, I don't care WHAT the manufacturer says about foliar feeding. Take the sprayer back to the store, and instead, buy just a container of the fertilizer and a nice watering can. Pour the liquid on the soil.
You will be just fine using miracle grow to foliar feed your azaleas. I use a similar water soluble fertilizer in the nursery plus iron and manganese chelate with every pesticide application and the plants are fine. Make sure you follow the label rates, because too much applied to the leaves can definitley cause damage, especially if it is a hot day. Maybe use half the label rate and go from there. for what its worth, applying the fertilizer directly to the root zone will be more effecient and useful, but the foiliar feed is good for plants that are visibly deficient in iron, manganese, or nitrogen. The foliar route also dosent last very long, but works quicker. As for the bit about water acting as a magnifying glass, thats a bunch of voodoo mostly. The water droplet would have to be so thick that the leaf probably couldnt support it anyway, and if it was a sunny enough day for the magnifying effect to take place, the water would evaporate before it even had a chance. Another point- when you use a magnifying glass to burn something, what happens if you hold it right up against the object?? Nothing, because the beam has to be focused, and in this case, it wouldnt be. Simply put, its a myth.
Toad
Liquid fertilizer directly on a flower will generally cause the flower to wilt and die (not just with azaleas but with others too). If you spray liquid fertilizer onto plants while they are in flower, rinse the fertilizer off and into the soil.
Azaleas (and camellias too) actually prefer a lean soil without abundant nutrients.
The only time I have sprayed a liquid fertilizer is when I had a newly seeded lawn. Wheeling a spreader across it would have torn it up. Then, I was feeding through the soil (rinsing the fertilizer down towards the roots), not through the foliage. Many plants have waxy leaves that resist foliar feeding.
The problem with liquid fertilizers is that they break down and leach away too quickly. If properly diluted, however, they are great when you have a large number of container plants; you can feed while watering. Just be careful you don't burn the confined roots or cause a buildup of salts.
Good day Bob. The one issue to watch for when using a hose end sprayer to fertilize with is fertilizer burn. Hose end sprayers are notoriously horrible at consistent application of fertilizer/pesticide. These devices are not calibrated to _your_ house water pressure, but to a industry standard (55/ 60 pounds..etc). Your house's water pressure maybe higher or lower, which means that the amount of fertilizer coming out the hose end sprayer is not what the dial says is coming out. People also tend to be inconsistent in the motion they use to sweep over an area which leads to some areas getting double/triple the ammount of fertilizer while others get none.
Another issue to watch for is cross contamination of your water supply. This can occur when the water pressure drops suddenly and the chemicals get siphoned in to the main water system. Purchase a check valve or anti-siphon device that attaches to the hose to advoid the problem.
All in all hose end sprayers waste much of the fertilizer that they are suppost to deliver. Much of it gets on non-targeted areas and plants or it just plainly gets over applied. Hose end sprayers are good at one thing though.... and that's selling fertilizer. If you were to mix the fertilizer in 5 gallon buckets and hand water, the fertilizer that you would use would be much less that with a hose end sprayer.
Good luck.
Hose end sprayers are great stuff, and a testament to capitalism. If you can't sell your product to more people get your existing customers to buy more of it.
Miracle gro is strong stuff, you don't need much of it, a careful gardener who follows the directions and mixes the stuff in a watering can uses far less stuff, which of course means Scotts sells far less. Scotts probably has done research on the average number of minutes a gardener sprays their garden. Combine that with an average rate of product consumption, and Scotts knows every minute you spend watering their garden, you're using up N cents of product.
Isn't capitalism great?
-S
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