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Garden
Q&A: Dispirited mango tree may resent your watering
By JOHN A. STARNES JR.
Published January 28, 2006
Q. Can you tell me how to take care of my "Ice Cream mango" tree. The tree is barely 4 feet tall even though I put it in the ground last April. The leaves are sorry-looking, and the bottom halves have tuned brown and dry. The tree is watered twice a week by a sprinkler system, so it gets about an inch of water. I'm not sure about the feeding/watering schedule, and no one seems to be able to give me the answers, not even the nurseries. When I purchased it, the tree was in a 1-gallon plastic pot and looked really healthy.
A. I've never heard of that variety of mango, but one thing I've learned from my uncle in Miami and from others is that mangoes resent being watered. As soon as I stopped watering, mine were much better. Many people spray blooming mango trees with neutral copper to keep anthracnose from ruining the blooms. This year, I may try copper sulfate, which is all natural.
Cattle feed nourishes grass too
Q. We sowed rye seed in our lawn and headed out to buy either menhaden fish meal or calf manna. We went to all the stores around here (we live in Spring Hill), but nobody had heard of either product. We went to the feed store in Brooksville and found calf manna, but it is granular and we were told that it is feed for cattle. Can you tell us where to purchase these products? If the calf manna is the proper product, how do we use it?
A. All feed stores should have access to menhaden fish meal from their supplier. Those stores supplied by Manna Pro can get it, if they know to order it. Calf manna is a livestock feed, but it is also a very good food for roses, vegetables, lawns, etc. It will go through a broadcast spreader easily. Apply it heavily if your soil is hungry (about one 50 pound bag for every 2,000 square feet). Once watered in, the pellets decay, then feed the soil, lawn and plants. These products are nonburning and all natural.
Orchids don't need fancy feasts
Q. Over a year ago I bought an orchid, Oncidium Intergeneric/Alliance. I have yet to see it bloom, although it has a lot of new growth. I grow it outdoors in light shade and have not fed it anything because I have been unsure what to give it. How can I get it to bloom?
A. An organic approach would be to feed your orchid diluted fish emulsion perhaps six to eight times a year. But lots of orchid folks buy soluble chemical orchid food, like the one put out by Peter's. I feed mine mainly by dunking them several times a year in my nutrient-rich fish ponds.
- John A. Starnes Jr., born in Key West, is an avid organic gardener and rosarian who studies, collects, cultivates and hybridizes roses for Florida. He can be reached at johnastarnes@msn.com
[Last modified January 27, 2006, 10:48:05]
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