When to start feeding?

Afternoon everyone!

When is the best time to start feeding my perennials? Normally, I would of started by now as the weather would be considerably warmer, but I'm at a loss as I reckon here were at least 3 weeks behind. Stuff that Normally is starting to show strong growth isn't surfacing as yet!

The only things that are noticeably putting on a bit of growth are hemerocallis, rheum, ligularia and a couple of peonys. Everything else seems to be stalling!

 

fed all the plants that need it with growmore Sunday , just before I had the rain , I had 1/2 box of Phosphate so that went on the raspberries .

I will be top dressing all the borders this weekend so glad they had a soak 1st.

Dont like using too much fertilizer as I end up all leaves no flowers

 

I am not sure that you need to feed perennials. I am on clay, which has a lot of nourishment in it - so I generally never feed. I don't suppose it does any harm, but I suspect that it can't do any good until they are growing strongly - ie when it warms up.

Feeding pots is a different matter. They need a lot - compost has essentially no goodness in it at all.

 

Not on clay should of said , very well drained old river bed that also used to be the local tennis Club until they moved.
But with all the rain over winter and last year , my plants need a boost plus they are all starting to show above ground.

Spruce

 

Two thoughts:

Advice for sowing seeds for vegetables is to incorporate some "Growmore" a couple of weeks before sowing. I wonder if "a bit before needed" applies here as well? I feed my young hedges with pure Nitrogen just before the buds break [i.e. when the buds "fatten"], and I reckon that they put on a fantastic amount of "extra extension" as a result.

Although everything is late I think it will "sprint" when the weather changes, rather than the time period being like the elapsed duration of a normal Spring. So I think there may be a case for fertilising "now".

But I'm only thinking out loud.