The Best Fertilizers for Flowers

 

Flowers often bloom well in the beginning of the season, but may struggle during a second or third round of blossoming, due to diminished nutrient content of the soil. Fertilizers are the best choice for helping flowers create great blooms, but not all fertilizers are designed for use on flowering plants. Different flowers can also have different fertilizer requirements.

1. Potassium-Rich Blends

   • If you'd prefer more large, showy blooms on your flowering plants and less lanky stems and bushy leaves, the Gardening Advisor website recommends using plenty of potassium. While nitrogen is important for healthy leaf development, when soil nitrogen is higher than soil potassium, flowers have trouble blooming. Nitrogen should be added while the plant is still developing its stems and leaves, but once it is in the blooming cycle, a potassium-rich fertilizer will encourage it to continue producing new flowers.

   Water-Soluble Fertilizer

   • Most fertilizer blends come in a powdered form that is sprinkled over freshly turned soil. However, water-soluble liquid fertilizers make it easy to help freshly transplanted flowers thrive, says the University of Missouri Extension. Starter fertilizers have high levels of phosphorus so your growing flowers can produce healthy stems and leaves early in the growing process. Mixing the fertilizer with water helps you individually fertilize each plant, and offers exact control over the amount of each nutrient you add.

   Nitrogen Side Dressing

   • Although adding nitrogen at the wrong time can disrupt flowering, most annuals require an additional nitrogen side dressing at some point during the growing season, according to the University of Missouri Extension. Cold weather flowers that are planted early, such as pansies and tulips, grow best with an early dose of nitrogen as they first begin to bloom. Flowers that don't produce blooms until the end of spring or beginning of summer should receive a side dressing after their first round of flowers has died to help boost late-season growth. Avoid adding more nitrogen than potassium, or the plants may stop flowering altogether.

   Specialty Fertilizers

   • Some flowers have such specific nutrient requirements that special fertilizer blends are produced just for them. For example, roses bloom best when fertilized with mixtures featuring twice as much phosphorus as nitrogen or potassium, says the Roses And Everything About Them website. Too much nitrogen will force your rose bushes to focus on producing new leaves instead of new blooms. Other blends are available to address the specific needs of orchids, flowering cacti and other unusual flowers.

Posted in: Flower Basics