OK. My situation occurred back to the late 1990s. First, let me say that as understand it, most nutrients, whether macro, micro or trace are generally present in most all soils. But most all of them are either in elemental or compound or other cationic forms that a plant can't use efficiently, if at all. They must be put into a solution state that's either cationic (+) or anionic (-) that plants can utilize. To do that requires the the addition of some acid forming product, like Aluminun Sulfate or Calcium Sulfate--one which will in time will combine with water to form sulfuric acid, in which the macro, micro and trace units are soluable and in a state that a plant an 'take up' readily (and beautiful growth as a result, hopefully).
Now, Rick--before I go any further, if there's anything here that's not right or needs modifying or added in, please do that. This is an area where I think you have an abundance of helpful knowledge that we all benefit from. And me, I'm just your average gardener with good intentions who got caught up in a chemical trick.
Now, how does all this relate to my situation. Well, first of all, during the previous year or two, I thought my plants (all plants mixed, not just lilies) should be doing better. I had fertilized, had good sandy loam soil with pretty high amounts of organics, compost, rotting wood chips, etc. So, out of curiousity I took five soil samples in March from this 1100 sq ft garden to the county extension lab to be checked. The results showed the pH to be 7.5-7.6. for whatever reason. They suggested adding Aluminum Sulfate or Calcium Sulfate and have the soil rechecked in six weeks or so. I added Aluminum Sulfate, worked in and watered in well. And I also did a medium application of 10-10-10, non fortified fertilizer.
Within a few weeks my plants were up and growing like gangbusters. Geez, I thought--adjusting the pH was like waving a magic wand, things were growing so vigorously! By then it was time to recheck the pH and it was about 6.5-6.6. Great!
But things changed. It got hot! And the soil became drier. Certain plants like bleeding hearts started to wilt and soon after the lilies were wilting and some were turning brown on the bottom. My garden was turning into a disaster. I explained this to the county agent who loved taking solo field trips. When he came to take a look he explained that it was most probably nitrogen burning. He explained that when I lowered the pH, I in a sense, "opened the flood gates" to an over abundance of "banked nutrients" which the plants would use but that along with that they had taken up a correspondingly high amount of Nitrogen and in proportion with the rest of the nutrients which would be Ok as long as it was cool with ample moisture, but not when it got hot and that Nitrogen was so hygroscopic it held the moisture and that my plants were dying of thirst at the onset of hot weather. He suggested repeated heavy watering to grow thru it, which I did. I lost the bleeding hearts and a couple others but the lilies did survive.
Since then, I've learned to make my pH adjustments slowly over a period of a couple years if necessary. I've also learned that Aluminum Sulfate can be a bad actor as well--which is another story.
Rick--your comments and thoughts?
