Pakistan Gardening Forum

We have seen pots and hanging baskets on internet packed with blooms, it is my observation that the potting medium they use contain slow release fertilizers. Has anyone used them? if yes please share your experience.. i am looking forward to apply these in pots of common flowering annuals like petunia, phlox and pansies..

Good idea, let us have two groups One working with slow release and other wit conventional.
I AM PLANNING TO USE VERY POROS MEDIUM AND FERTILISING WITH EVERY WATERING.

I will make 5 pots with sustain release mixed and five with NPK (8:23:18), the plant i am opting for is petunia...

Izhar wrote:I will make 5 pots with sustain release mixed and five with NPK (8:23:18), the plant i am opting for is petunia...

Which sustain release would you be useing? what is the cost?

I have some options, i dont know about the cost yet, will be searching the market... this simple comparative setup will also help in cost/benefit ratio.. details will be posted when i start the setup.. which sustain release fertilizers are available at Lahore? Mir sb. has used them as a top dressing with good results and i guess he used "Dynamite"

Dear Izhar,

Here in Jubail i have seen many types of fertilizers available, the potting soil commonly available has enough nutritions to meet the plant requirements for 3 months for indoor non blooming plants, iam mixing fertilizer grains into it with sand 50% for my hangings, these grains works for 2 months as written on its pack, althougn iam not using but have seen fertilizer for trees with working life of 5 years and even more, but they are costly. i will check more and reply.

This saturday i bought a packet of osmocote 14-14-14 (four month slow release) but when i opened the packet it contained different colored granules including light brown, yellow and white.. i dont know if it is a counterfeit product because when i googled the images i observed that chinese companies are exporting such fertilizers under the name of "scott's osmocote"... next week i will go to abdul seed store and vitex gardening shop to look for the original osmocote or any popular branded slow release product. This packet which i bought was 250 gm and cost was Rs.350/-

Adnan, if we use compost or any potting mix containing compost then it can easily provide nutrients to the plants for 2-3 months, but the concentration rapidly declines afterwards as the plant grow, so to take the benefit of these slow release fertilizer, we should administer the after 2 months of initial planting.. kindly do provide the information on the slow release fertilizers for trees..

Izhar, you can do NPK test to check the composition of fertilizer, then after mixing with soil initially and after 4months to check the effectiveness, i have a digital fertilizer meter which shows the overall fertilizer content in soil, it is quite useful for comparison purpose ( just got it from e-bay), i am planningto use it effectively this spring.

iam planning a visit on weekend to the nurseries here and will bring the info as required.

This saturday i bought Nutricote 14-14-14 (180 days slow release)... a six month time release fertilizer... if it worked well then it will be a great source of nutrition to our potted perennials..

a comparison between nutricote and osmocote

http://hri.tdwdev.com/docs/publications ... 02-108.pdf