How about you? Do you have any pictures of plants fed with just Foliage Pro? A years worth or more using just FP?

Plants fed Miracle Grow and miracid..

Mike..:-)

Mike

Thanks so much. Now I know.. FP for me. :)

thank you

Al

I will always be grateful for all that you show me and how to apply it. I need to take some updates on some of these. Boy, I can't believe the difference looking at some of these. I am still using Foliage Pro and I am thankful I have easy access to it.

Your welcome Xmike, Lamora and Mango..Sheesh, too bad I wasn't a rep, I'd be rich selling the stuff..lol

Mike

What's the plant in pic 1? I first thought citrus but flowers don't match.

And, what's the plant in the last photo? A Gardenia? Mike, looks like it had/s mites.. Have you checked for webbing? Toni

Mike, maybe you could update us on these plants?

Josh

When I lived in New England, the water in my area was naturally soft and slightly acidic. Hence acid-promoting products like Miracid are probably going to make the growing medium too acidic there.

However, where I live now in SoCal, water is hard (dissolved calcium and magnesium) and treated to raise the pH to 8 or so. Entirely different story for growing plants. The acid-forming products are highly popular around here for good reason.

Al

Mike, what happened to the plants fertilized with MG? Are they still around?

Al, you wrote, "almost all municipal water supplies are treated so they come in at a pH well above 8.0."

Does this mean acid-loving plants need acidic fertilizer? Toni

Many of the micronutrients also precipitate from the soil solution at high pH. This means they form insoluble compounds with other elements in the soil solution, and they literally fall out of the solution like rain - thus the term 'precipitation'.

When you start adding up all the negatives associated with soils that don't allow you to water properly, it starts to become easier to see why I'm constantly harping on soil choice as the most significant influence on a grower's ability to consistently produce healthy material. The upward creep of pH is one of the negatives on the list

The fact that different genera/species of plants grow in different types of soil (pH) does not necessarily mean that the plant is an 'acid lover' (as an example). It just means that the plants have developed strategies to adapt to certain conditions, like excesses and deficiencies of particular nutrients. Plants that "love" acid soils have simply developed strategies to cope with those soils. Their calcium needs are still the same as any other plant and no different from the nutrient requirements of plants that thrive in alkaline soils. The problem for acid-loving plants is that they are usually unable to adequately limit their calcium uptake, and will absorb too much of it when available, resulting in cellular pH-values that are too high. Some acid-loving plants also have difficulties absorbing Fe, Mn, Cu, or Zn, which are more tightly held in alkaline soils, another reason why they thrive in low pH (acid) soils.

Al