# question for ceg4048



## Mark Evans (23 Jul 2008)

hi clive,
after a bit of research i discovered that roses love K! i made a solution of po4( half teaspoon to 2 litres of water) and gambled by putting it on my roses. they love it. new growth is outstanding.

ok here's my question, 

Q. do you know what part of NPK would a lawn require?

ive been ferting my lawn and all is good, just wondered if i could force the issue with dry ferts.

thanks

mark


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## ceg4048 (23 Jul 2008)

Howdy mark,
                   i had to do a double take on the thread title. I thought I was being called in by MI6.  

I'm a little confused though, you said you put KH2PO4 in water and fed it to the roses? How do you know that the rose is responding to the K more than the PO4?

NPK is vital to any plant including terrestrials. When  I do a water change I feed my entire garden, the pond as well as the house plants with the removed water. They all respond brilliantly and flower like mad. The lawn would be the same story but it gets expensive for a large area. Just like the aquatics, the mixture you use would depend on what deficiencies the lawn is having. If the lawn is yellow this could mean either an N or an Fe deficiency. Adding some KNO3 plus some KH2PO4 in a spray bottle and attaching the hose would work and bring back the deep green. You could even simply spread the powders directly on the lawn and then water at dusk. I'd opt for that method as it's easier. 

It might be even easier and cheaper to get some miracle grow from Tesco or B&Q though since this is basically the same thing and it's cheaper. The only difference between Miracle Grow or Brand X fertilizer in the garden center and our NPK is that they use some ammonia salts to derive their Nitrogen. This is not a big deal though you could burn the roots if you used too strong a concentration.

In any case the garden center or even Garden Direct website has cheap ferts for lawns (Chempak). No need to uses our stuff. 8) 

Cheers,


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## Mark Evans (23 Jul 2008)

thanks clive, didnt mean to scare you. needed your attention.

just what i was looking for. wasnt sure if it would be a cheaper option to use the dry ferts.



			
				ceg4048 said:
			
		

> I'm a little confused though, you said you put KH2PO4 in water and fed it to the roses? How do you know that the rose is responding to the K more than the PO4?



good point. maybe i could make a solution from NPK a trust what it does. rather than being specific.

ive got a bottle that attaches to the hose pipe so i'll make a solution up and try it on one area and see what happens.

thanks again clive.

i'll let you know the results.

mark.     p.s you do know your onions


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## ceg4048 (23 Jul 2008)

Yeah, but too bad I prefer mangoes...  

Like you said, I wouldn't try to be specific because you can go mad trying to figure out which way is up. Just add a little bit of everything and let the plant take what it needs.

Cheers mate!


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## GreenNeedle (23 Jul 2008)

If you want to know what each type of plant prefers then go to http://www.william-sinclair.co.uk/gardening/products and look at the plant food section for the J Arthur Bowers products.  They tell you the ratio of NPK for each type of plant for example:

Rose Food is 5/5/10 (meaning there is twice as much K as there is of N and P)

Lawn Food is 13/3/3.

These ratios are not set in stone though.  They may 'tweak' the ratio slightly sometimes if the price of certain chemicals gets silly (like Molybdate and Phosphate last year) otherwise they would have to increase the price for the finished product.  It would however be a minimal tweak.



> The only difference between Miracle Grow or Brand X fertilizer in the garden center and our NPK is that they use some ammonia salts to derive their Nitrogen.



This isn't correct.  Although composts will use a urea based additive mainly in the farm manure that is in the mix, all the plant and lawn feeds use Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate etc.  I use the very same chemicals from the very same bays/tonny bags that they use in my fert solutions!!!.

Andy


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## Mark Evans (23 Jul 2008)

thats quite interesting andy.likeclive suggested more N for a lawn. the mix acording to that site is high in N.

way to go clive.  

i guess your into plant care andy? im getting into it. iwouldnt ofbelieved it 3 years ago


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## ceg4048 (23 Jul 2008)

SuperColey1 said:
			
		

> > The only difference between Miracle Grow or Brand X fertilizer in the garden center and our NPK is that they use some ammonia salts to derive their Nitrogen.
> 
> 
> 
> This isn't correct.  Although composts will use a urea based additive mainly in the farm manure that is in the mix, all the plant and lawn feeds use Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate etc.  I use the very same chemicals from the very same bays/tonny bags that they use in my fert solutions!!!.



Nope, not true mate. Look at the ingredients of any bag/box of ferts in the garden center, especially the high Nitrogen ones. Let me read you some of the contents of the popular Miracle Gro All Purpose in the yellow plastic tub which is a 24-8-16:
Nitrogen (N) total........................... 24%
Ammoniacal nitrogen (N) .................3.5%
Ureic nitrogen (N) ..........................20.5%

Most of this product's N is derived from Urea and the remainder is direct NH3. As I said, this isn't unique. Look at any ingredient sack and you'll see similar numbers for any of the popular fertilizers as well as the not so popular ones. This makes perfect sense because Urea and ammonia are much higher in N per unit weight than KNO3 therefore it is much cheaper to produce. You may have access to wholesale industrial type products but in the retail shops just about everything is cut with ammonia and urea. If it weren't you can bet you bottom dollar I wouldn't need to buy ferts from on-line vendors, I would go straight to the garden center mate.  

Cheers,


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## GreenNeedle (23 Jul 2008)

Well when I <----- was buying the products for J Arthur Bowers Plant foods (liquid and granular) urea was not part of the mix!!!  These are mixes of bagged product and bulk tipped product in bays.  Own brand products had Urea content in them but the JAB didn't (unless this has changed since I was there last year.)  Their trace elements are all bought in seperately in EDTA form and then mixed on site then added to the NPK powders and then turned into liquid or granular form.

Urea was part of the mix in the composts and growing media but not the plant foods.  MiracleGro may use it but maybe that's why they don't get as high ratings in the tests as JAB products continually do!!!

I can only tell you what Sinclairs put in their products whereas Scotts and Westland may use different chemicals as source for their nutrient.

Andy


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## ceg4048 (24 Jul 2008)

Yep, Scotts uses a little Urea and mostly Ammonium Nitrate for many of their retail mixes. I was forced to use their 14-7-14 when I lived in an area where I couldn't get my hands on KNO3. It was delicate situation because I was keeping Discus so I had to be very careful. It worked fine but I was always stressed out thinking a disaster was just around the corner. I finally did get my hands on individual 25kg sacks of KNO3 and KH2PO4 and ditched the Scotts immediately.   

I'm not familiar with JAB, although I've never paid any more attention to the garden centre stuff since that time. Do you have any contact info? If I could find KNO3 and KH2PO4 in bulk I'd jump at the chance.

Cheers,


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## Lisa_Perry75 (24 Jul 2008)

Quick roses question, if the leaves have lots of black spots and the leaves are dark green or yellow is this a deficiency or a disease?


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## ceg4048 (24 Jul 2008)

Hi Lisa,
            Black spot is a disease but the plants are more susceptible to the disease when they aren't fed and watered properly. Remove as many infected leaves as possible. This includes the fallen leaves as well. Remove all fallen leaves from around the base of the plant. Avoid using the infected leaves in compost otherwise you will just spread the disease. Probably best to burn them. There are plenty of fungicides available for treating this but it takes a couple of weeks to treat. Black spot can spread to other species but roses seem more susceptible than others.

Cheers,


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## GreenNeedle (24 Jul 2008)

JAB (J Arthur Bowers) don't sell KNO3 or KH2PO4 as a product or as bulk.  These are bought in to mix into other products.

Potassium sulphate is bought, boxed and sold as 'Sulphate of Potash'
As is Ammonium Sulphate and Magnesium Sulphate etc.  the KNO3 and KH2PO4 are only used in mixes whereas a lot of the other products are not mixes and are in fact just weighed out and boxed like Dried Blood, Fish Blood & Bone etc.

I got mine by filling a sample bag with approx 1kg of each and taking them home while I worked there.  I did of course ask if I could buy some first to which the reply was 'Just take it.  Its too much hassle to charge you the 50p that those 4 x 1kg bags cost us'  So I did and still have plenty 1 year on.

That Garden Direct site sells 25kg bags of each of the powders though.

Andy


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## Mark Evans (2 Aug 2008)

clive i opted for an off the shelf fert.its worked wonders. sadly i dont have a before pic. but i can judge by looking at my neighbours lawn, and there is a masive difference. my rose bush has gone mental too with added K there must at least 70 flowers waiting to open.






thanks

mark


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## George Farmer (2 Aug 2008)

What a lovely lawn!


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## ceg4048 (2 Aug 2008)

Yep, well done mate! Another mind freed from The Matrix...By the way, could you come over and do my lawn?  

Cheers,


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## GreenNeedle (3 Aug 2008)

Thats the only thing I miss about a new (or recent) build house.  A nice flat lawn. lol

Andy


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