Rhododendron fertilize - the best home remedies & professional fertilizers

• Fertilizer for all plants
• Special fertilizer wishes

Fertilize Rhododendron is not rocket science, all plants need the same substances, depending on the species / variety a bit more or a little less of it. The article tells you what rhododendron needs.

Plants get some nutrients in the garden not sufficiently provided because they are closer together than in nature and grow faster. In contrast, the nutrient-producing natural cycle slows down in gardens or even comes to a standstill in monoculture gardens. So rhododendrons need to be fed on fertilizer.

Fertilizer for all plants

The substances that the plants typically lack are basically the same in principle. All plants live on the basic substances carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and the main nutrients calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and sulfur. They get a lot of them from soil, water and air; it gets tight with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Therefore, the normal fertilizer is also called NPK fertilizer, namely it contains exactly these Kernnährelemente, N = nitrogen, P = phosphorus and K = potassium.

Like humans, plants absolutely need some trace elements, these are the essential trace elements. Which are supplied to man by white flour and sugar just as little as the rhododendron by a garden soil, which has long seen nothing more than synthetic fertilizer and in which no soil life exists. Therefore, in a garden that has long been occupied with monocultures and synthetically fertilized, a soil analysis is certainly useful for getting to know the basic condition of the soil.

To check the of trace elements that plants need (boron, chlorine, iron, copper, manganese, molybdenum, zinc) or like (probably many more, not yet explored), you would need the chemistry lab in the basement or a crystal ball, In addition, every plant has something else to the trace elements.

In the long term, you will definitely be better off if you manage your garden in such a way that a natural soil life develops. As in nature, this soil life transforms the remnants of the plants, which are mixed up in such a garden, into a real garden soil. In such a garden soil, the basic nutrients and trace elements are present, only very hungry plants are supported by fertilizer.

The Fertilizers Ordinance lists what, according to current knowledge of science, is suitable as a fertilizer and may be sold as a fertilizer. What's inside a fertilizer must be on the packaging. Everything that is sold without labeling in great packaging, so no fertilizer, otherwise the dealer would certainly not ignore the labeling obligation. And a rhododendron fertilizer is no more and no less than a fertilizer that contains a rhododendron-appropriate (or even completely wrong) nutrient composition, not a miracle cure specifically for rhododendron.

Special fertilizer wishes

Each plant has come to know a different soil during their evolution or in their homeland, so in detail the dietary needs differ a bit. The large-flower garden rhododendrons have the following needs:

• In the growing season between April and October a uniform supply of nutrients in the soil
  • Either as a long-acting depot fertilizer (6 months), which will be given in mid-April
  • Or as a fertilizer that acts only 2-4 months, also applied in April and then again after flowering

• Of the mineral fertilizers everyone goes normal whole fertilizer, as organic fertilizer z. B. slowly degradable horn chips
• Only lime should not be present, most rhododendrons tolerate only soils with low calcium (pH neutral to acidic)
• How much fertilizer a particular rhododendron needs depends on its size and vigor
  • An average number for the application of whole fertilizer is 50 g per square meter
• By the end of June at the latest, the last nitrogen-containing fertilizer should be in the soil
• Because now the rhododendron must begin to mature the shoots, so they withstand the winter cold
• If you notice that the rhododendron suffers from a calcareous garden soil, fertilization also involves adjusting the pH
  • This works z. B. with acidified compost, oak leaves and coffee grounds
• There are plenty of other natural substances that can help bring a calcareous soil to normal levels
  • Grape nests
  • mulchen with Nadelstreu, Buchenlaub,
  • only peat is taboo for the responsible gardener

Which NPK ratio a particular plant values ​​is often known from experience. As with rhododendron, it usually gets along well with a fertilizer that contains few percentages of nitrogen and twice as much phosphorus and potassium. For example, percentages such as 4/8/8, 6/12/12. If you use granular fertilizer, here is a tip for measuring: A handful are 35 to 40 grams.