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johniferous

Various Conifers - when to fertilize?

Last fall I planted two white pines.

This past spring I planted two more white pines, one steeplechase arborvitae, 5 emerald green arbs, and a blue spruce.

I would like to fertilize them only for their first year of life to help get them going.

Which, if any, of these species should be fertilized in the fall (they will all get a small amount in the spring of course)?

If so, WHEN in the fall should they be fertilized? Before, during or after leaf drop?

Comments (8)

  • ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
    9 years ago

    i NEVER fert conifers ... ever ...

    has your soil test.. indicated anything is missing from the soil???

    do white pines in the forest need fertilizer????

    on some level.. you are treating them like hungry children.. they arent ... they are trees ...

    and dont feed them in the spring either ... of course ....

    none of those you list.. has leaf drop.. if you wait until leaf drop.. skip it.. they are dead.. lol ..

    ken

  • davidrt28 (zone 7)
    9 years ago

    98% of the country's nursery stock is sufficiently fertilized, if not over-fertilized, when you buy it. There's no need to help them "get going" in this way, and in fact it will likely be counter-productive.
    I try not to fertilize until the 3rd year, if at all. If I had infinite time resources I'd be happy to send you many pictures of plants that have grown 1-3' in their first 1 to 3 years, w/o any fertilizer added by me after planting. Those odd green or tan beads in the plant's rootball? Fertilizer put there by the wholesale grower.
    Just make sure they don't dry out...but don't over water them. Only under exceptional circumstances should you ever have to water more than once a week. Maybe if you have really sandy Jersey soil, and it's the worst heatwaves of summer, you could go up to twice a week. Otherwise having to water more than once a week is a sign you aren't doing it deeply enough and/or you don't have enough mulch on the plant's rootzone.

  • Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
    9 years ago

    Ditto. I swear I can tell when my potted transplants run out of that fancy fertilizer soil and figure out they have to grow roots into my perfectly fine yard.

    Thank goodness a number of them are down hill from my septic ;)

  • basic
    9 years ago

    "Thank goodness a number of them are down hill from my septic"

    Are you trying to tell us you're full of...fertilizer?

  • Embothrium
    9 years ago

    Any given plant at any given time will either benefit from the right fertilizer or not and this has nothing to do with generalities like how long it has been since planting or where it came from.

    Roots don't figure out anything, they have a mandate to grow away from the center of the plant and will do just that as soon as and whenever they have the chance. But if it is not the right time of the year for a lot of root growth, there won't be any, regardless of how healthy the plant is. Once that time comes, the first time it comes after planting, there will be a lot of rooting out - unless the plant is in too poor condition to grow much. One cause of poor condition and minimal growth after planting can be inadequate fertilization, both before and after planting. I see a lot of that here, wholesale production facility fertilization regimes not being continued after delivery to retailers, and final planting out.

  • davidrt28 (zone 7)
    9 years ago

    "this has nothing to do with generalities like how long it has been since planting or where it came from. "

    It has everything to do with it. Since many wholesalers load their production soil with more fertilizer beads than the plant can possibly use for several years, there's certainly no need to add any...for several years.

  • Embothrium
    9 years ago

    Pelleted fertilizer doesn't last that long. Fertilizer is expensive. Growers of ornamental stock making a habit of applying hugely larger amounts of fertilizers than are needed will be eliminating their profits, same as those producing edible crops. True, there is a continuing water pollution problem due to fertilization of commercial crops. But most operators now taking it to the extent of routinely and generally "loading" particularly costly pelleted fertilizers with multiple times ("several years") the recommended amount I don't expect.

    What I do see is that a lot of woody stock that has been in retail yards for any significant length of time is quite apparently starved and stunted. (If most of it is coming from growers with mountains of surplus fertilizer piled on it, how does this rapid decline occur?) Blindly holding back on fertilizer for years after planting such specimens is not going to produce a superior or really even satisfactory outcome.

    At all times, each individual specimen is either getting enough minerals to perform fully or it is not.

  • davidrt28 (zone 7)
    9 years ago

    Bboy, OK, there's no point in arguing further, obviously we've had different experiences. I accept your viewpoints as valid ones.

    "What I do see is that a lot of woody stock that has been in retail yards for any significant length of time is quite apparently starved and stunted."
    I literally have never seen this except at a junk nursery that was long overdue to go out of business, and finally did as the housing bust reached its nadir. In that case though, I think the plants just hadn't been watered...which needs to be done very fastidiously in a climate with blazing hot summers. At the typical nurseries in the I-95 corridor, which now all mostly cater to the "upper end" of the market (the lower end just goes to Wallyworld anymore) the nursery stock is usually gorgeous looking. Plump, dark green, not a bad leaf in sight.
    "Pelleted fertilizer doesn't last that long."
    I've seen them in the soil of plants 2 years after planting. Partly dissolved but obviously still releasing NPK et al.

    "Fertilizer is expensive." So is having the plants sit around a wholesaler's field _not_ growing as fast as they could. Hence the incentive to produce them with optimal fertilization. Maybe this is more true of eastern/NEC wholesalers since land is generally more expensive here, and there's a shorter growing season on which to maximize growth. Even at a place like Rarefind, I see how quickly they get their in-house produced rhododendrons to go from cutting to saleable plant, because I visit multiple times every year. An aggressive but well thought out fertilization routine is part of what makes it happen.

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