The importance of feeding summer container displays is obvious – hungry summer bedding plants quickly use up the nutrients within their compost. In a usual winter, feeding of seasonal bedding containers is usually not needed, particularly when using a compost from the West+ range – all have 4 month’s worth of feed added to them. Slower growth in winter means plants, even those that flower at this time of year, will make do with what is in the compost.
However, we’re not having a usual winter! Heavy rain in the last month is likely to have washed nutrients though container compost and mild temperatures mean plants are putting on more growth this winter than is usual.
If we want our winter bedding containers to carry on into spring, it’s worth offering your pots of pansies, violas, primroses and the like a feed now to ensure healthy vigorous plants until April/May.
Apply a liquid feed such as Nutri All Purpose Plant Food for a fast fix, but if more rain is to follow (more than likely!) a slow release option may be better, as liquid feeds are flushed through compost much faster than granular/pelleted feeds. Nutri Slow Release Plant Food, will continue to feed plants for up to six months. The granules offer fast release feed for immediate impact, then continue to release nutrients, increasing in rate as temperatures warm up as we move towards spring. Simple add a sprinkling to the compost surface and mix in.
If you’re like me, you are only just venturing out into the garden again after the Christmas break. As you feed your containers, also dead head any spent flowers from bedding plants and check for health. Pests are unlikely to be a problem at this time of year, but rots and moulds maybe a problem in the damp conditions. If so, during the next dry spell, treat plants with Plant Rescue Fungus.
Kris Collins started out in gardening as an estates worker at Richmond Park, west London, before training as a Royal Parks apprentice at Greenwich Park (south east london). After a stint as greenkeeper at The London Golf Club, Kent, he made a move towards journalism as a reporter for Horticulture Week. He now writes for Amateur Gardening magazine, Britain’s best selling weekly gardening magazine, and tends his own garden in a leafy part of Hampshire.
Source: Garden Health – Boost Your Winter Bedding – Kris Collins
