Thanks, Sue; that was very helpful!
Potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium.
I've switched from Osmcote to Miracle Gro all-purpose time release fertilizer, because at 12-4-8 it has the right N-P-K ratio (per Dan Trimmer
http://www.ctdaylily.com/trimm... ) for daylilies. I use a LOT of it around each clump (because I know that the N should be high), and the foliage is green enough. I would think that should cover the P and K, so maybe my problems are with a lack of magnesium or calcium? The Miracle Gro time release fertilizer has those at 1.4% and 1.5% respectively; is that enough?
http://www.miraclegro.com/smg/... (In comparison, all purpose time-release Osmcote Plus is 15-9-12, which has 1.3% magnesium and
NO calcium
http://www.plantersplace.com/p... . Their 14-14-14 Flower/Vegetable formulation has
NEITHER magnesium or calcium.
http://www.plantersplace.com/p... )
I have also been liquid supplementing (when I remember - this goes mostly on the seedlings) with SeaMax all purpose 16-16-16, which also has various trace elements, but surprisingly no magnesium or calcium.
So right now, at a guess, it looks like my problems lie in magnesium and/or calcium deficiencies. I've been treating my seedlings with liberal amounts of John & Bob's Maximize (0.33% magnesium, 1.9% calcium, 0.46% iron)
https://www.johnandbobs.com/pr... . None of those scapes are obviously stunted (but on the other hand, they are a bit shorter than I like and have expected). Maybe I need to start applying this Maximize to the garden cultivars as well.
I should revisit using a liquid fertilizer with magnesium and calcium. Trimmer mentioned using
"Peter’s Excel product known as Cal Mag 15-5-15" in his article, and when I read that article (a few years ago, now?) I think I bought a bag of it, or something very much like it. (The bag looked different than the image in the following link, and the label has since faded...) The fertilizer is a blue crystalline powder, and something about pouring a blue liquid on top of plants is off-putting to me, so I switched over to Maxsea in that time period (without looking closely at the trace elements, duh). Maybe I should go back to using that, instead of the Maxsea, as my liquid supplemental fertilizer. (Or maybe I can alternate treatments, as I have a lot of the Maxsea product here.
) The Peter's has 5% calcium, 2% magnesium.
http://www.greenhousemegastore...
