Overview:

The first thing you should know about backyard gardening is how to fertilize your plants and shrubs. One of the primarily things to know about backyard gardening is how and when to fertilize. Fertilizing can be overdone, not enough is always better than too much.

Landscape plants are not like the lawn grass around your home. The grass around your home can grow as much as five inches in one week, therefore using up a considerable amount of nitrogen.

Many landscape plants don’t grow five inches in a full growing season. You must be very careful when fertilizing. Fertilizer provides nitrogen to your plants. If you apply more nitrogen than a plant can use, you will burn the plant and most likely kill it.

Fertilizer has the chemical composition of nutrients printed on the container. Such as 12-12-12, 26-3-3 or 5-10-5. These numbers represent the amount of active chemicals in the fertilizer. The first number represents the nitrogen content, the second number represents the phosphorous content, and the third number represents the potassium content.

A fertilizer with an analysis of 26-3-3 contains 26% nitrogen, 3% phosphorous, and 3% potassium. The other 68% of the content is just filler material that is chemically neutral. A 26-3-3 fertilizer is very high in nitrogen and should never be used on landscape plants. This formula might be all right to use for a lawn fertilizer during the peak growing season, providing the lawn has an adequate amount of water. If it doesn’t, the grass will burn. It is not an appropriate garden fertilizer.

Most nurseries fertilize their landscape plants with fertilizers that have slow release capabilities. Some of the fertilizers take up to nine months to completely release into the soil. This allows the plants to use the fertilizer as it is released.

For the best results use an organic garden fertilizer that will not burn. Review the label carefully. Fertilizer will help speed up the growth of your landscape plants, but having healthy plants is not that simple. The best thing you can do for your landscape plants to keep them healthy, happy, and vigorous, is to plant them in a raised bed of good rich and well drained soil.

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