Why I Oughta...

Here, below, is a look at the pair of Little Henry Sweetspire (Itea virginica 'Sprich') that was planted back in the Summer of 2017 when our house was built.  This shrub puts off these lovely, white flowers that have a really nice smell and the foliage puts on a show all year long.   This sits in a bed tucked in between our front walk and the driveway and just kind of keeps performing without much care. The last time I posted about these Little Henry's was back in September of 2019 here . I water the front yard during the Summer heat, so this shrub likely gets a little bit of that benefit, but I haven't fed it directly - to date.  But, I've noticed that the foliage is a little bit light green - not dark green currently.   I mentioned on Monday that the Rhododendrons seemed to need a little bit of iron , so I went out and picked up a bag of  this fast-acting Iron soil supplement from Menards  to see if it will make it happy and darken things up....

We have a pair of Rhododendrons planted on either side of our rear stoop that we put in the ground in 2018 as part of our plan .  I have never pruned them, but have protected them a little bit in Winter using Wilt-pruf a couple of times.  These are evergreen shrubs and they put on a nice flower show most years. But, this year these shrubs looked a little sad earlier this Spring.  They were yellow, drooping and leggy.  I bought some Epsoma Holly Tone this year to feed my hydrangeas and these Rhdodendrons and it seems like they've responded a bit.  I'm pretty sure they have an iron deficiency - as outlined here by Ortho.  Purdue University Extension office has a post up about this yellowing - called chlorosis .   I have started to feed these with a little bit of coffee grounds, but I think that I'm going to need some more drastic action to correct the iron. But, back to this season:  these two shrubs are flowering right now with light purple ...

Putting this in the lawn diary - I put down about 15# of The Andersons Soil Master 5-0-0 in the front yard this week.  And, I put down 3 40# bags of pelletized lawn lime in the backyard.  I bought The Anderson's Soil Mastery bag online - and it includes biochar, humic acid, iron, gypsum and sea kelp.  My plan is to spoon feed the front lawn with this - three applications...one per month - across the end or April, May, June.    Here's what it looks like in the spreader: I've applied Humic Acid in the past - early Summer 2019 - and pelletized gypsum before - but I've never applied these other things like biochar and sea kelp.  This is supposed to be an all-in-one product that I found online at Yard Mastery.  Here's their product listing : If you’ve been looking for a granular bio-stimulant for your poor soil, this is for you. It’s meant to be an add-on to your regular fertilizing regimen. It will condition your soil, add carbon and bio-stimulants, an...