Why I Oughta...

A few days ago, I applied my final (for this season) granular fertilizer application to all of the dahlias around the front/back/side yards as well as the five Disneyland Roses on the side of the house.  I (once again) used a three-in-one systemic granular that includes fertilizer, insecticide and fungicide from BioAdvanced.  I started using this stuff in May this season, so this marks the fifth application on the plants in 2025.   Here, below, is a peek at the base of one of the Dahlia tubers in the sideyard.  I use the cap from the bottle as the measuring device and dropped the granules at the base of each one.  Last year, I was getting blooms all the way up to the first frost in Mid-October, so this feeding will go for the next 5-or-so weeks.

Here's something that's new to me:  making banana water to feed Staghorn Ferns .  If you read up on Staghorn Ferns, you'll soon discover that they like banana peels.  In big, mounted Staghorn Ferns, some folks just toss the peel up *in* the fern.   I didn't do that. But, I did soak a banana peel in a glass of water for a little bit over a day and created a potassium, manganese and phosphorus-laden glass of water that I split between the two mounted ferns. Below is a photo of the water after 24 hours with the banana peel soaking in it. #19 on my 2023 to-do list is: "Staghorns take work" .  Feeding them banana water is part of that solve.