Hardy Tropicals UK

Dim wrote:of the choices available, my money is on soluble feed plus seaweed / iron (iassuming that you use the seaweed/iron every 2 weeks as a foliar feed during the growing season)

seaweed is good stuff .... but if you are foliar feeding, use spring water/ mineral water (39 pence gets you 2 litres of Clearview still springwater, or approx £1.20 gets you 5 litres of Asbeck spring water from Tesco)

some guys have reported probs using seaweed with hard tap water

(i'd also be inclined to add a handfull or two of vermicompost (worm humus) to the potting mixture if using the soluble)

I'm using the Seaweed as a root drench rather than a foliar spray. (Once a month as directed)

Week three and the wet weather and coolish temps mean I cant see any growth yet but a long way to go yet.

The results will be here shortly.

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Yorkshire Kris wrote:[media]Oq68iRrrqPU&feature=youtu.be[/media]

Try this:

Cheers Conifers. Three videos in 24hours... now I'm spent!

Kris, the results are pretty much what I would expect.Some oberservations.
1. The palms that are yellow are suffering from lack of nutrient , Palmfocus has a low fertiliser content for regular use and slow release releases feed slowly and is not really recommended for pots , so its not surprising the blue soluble is working much better together with Palmbooster in pots, the Palmbooster is increasing the fertiliser requirements and the palms are turning yellow as they are too big for the pots.
2. Palmbooster does not give instant results like Palmfocus it builds roots first and is clearly working as those palms are yellow and needing more fertiliser than the others.

Can you extend the test another year, and put them into 5 litre pots to see what happens ?? I would bet palm 2 races past palm 1, and 5 litres should give enough root room and food.

Nigel wrote:Kris, the results are pretty much what I would expect.Some oberservations.
1. The palms that are yellow are suffering from lack of nutrient , Palmfocus has a low fertiliser content for regular use and slow release releases feed slowly and is not really recommended for pots , so its not surprising the blue soluble is working much better together with Palmbooster in pots, the Palmbooster is increasing the fertiliser requirements and the palms are turning yellow as they are too big for the pots.
2. Palmbooster does not give instant results like Palmfocus it builds roots first and is clearly working as those palms are yellow and needing more fertiliser than the others.

Can you extend the test another year, and put them into 5 litre pots to see what happens ?? I would bet palm 2 races past palm 1, and 5 litres should give enough root room and food.

Nigel I can't remember exactly what size pots they are now in but think it's something like 4.7 litres which looked big enough. I will continue the experiment for another year as I don't want to plant them out yet. Lets see how they get on.

It will be fascinating to see how they go, I think they need more feed though , maybe double rations for all for a couple of months , or put them in saucers so that the feed doesn't leach away and is fully utilised.

Nigel wrote:It will be fascinating to see how they go, I think they need more feed though , maybe double rations for all for a couple of months , or put them in saucers so that the feed doesn't leach away and is fully utilised.

Last year was so wet the compost was constantly wet. I was surprised the roots were in such good condition.

Great video kris! I know it's early days but the short term experiment was very interesting!
Thankyou for your perseverance with it all especially as it couldn't be easy to keep to during your move!

Excellent video Kris and very interesting, I wonder if the results would have been the same with different palms or whether that’s a good rule of thumb for all the ones we grow in the UK. Just one question, how often are the palms fed?

cheshirepalms wrote:Excellent video Kris and very interesting, I wonder if the results would have been the same with different palms or whether that’s a good rule of thumb for all the ones we grow in the UK. Just one question, how often are the palms fed?

Check out the part one video in the first post.

Wet all the time ? Were they outside ? If so that will also affect any results because constant heavy rain is washing out the nutrient ,they should be kept in a greenhouse so that the plant only receives the correct treatment at the level prescribed. In greenhouse in saucers so that nothing escapes and all is consumed by the plant, only then do you get an accurate result.

Nigel wrote:Wet all the time ? Were they outside ? If so that will also affect any results because constant heavy rain is washing out the nutrient ,they should be kept in a greenhouse so that the plant only receives the correct treatment at the level prescribed. In greenhouse in saucers so that nothing escapes and all is consumed by the plant, only then do you get an accurate result.

I was trying to keep it true to life and therefore kept the palms outside like most people will be doing in their own gardens. They were indoors from October to April but not fed during that time.