The Plant Performance

Problem-The plants are slow to flower

Long before you decide that a plant simply wiil not bloom for you, you might describe as being slow to flower. For example, you may have purchased a bare-root plant a mail-order supplier. According to the information you can find from in books and on the Internet, you expect it to come into flower in the second or, at the least, the third year. But t doesn't. You probably bought the plant because you liked the flower or explore the possible causes for the delay in blooming. The solutions below and in the other related problem areas may give you the clue you need to speed up things.

Solution 1 Use Epsom salts

When perennial plants are slow to bloom it is often because magnesium is deficient. Fortunately, there is a fast, inexpensive, and easy way to supply this element. Use Epsom salts, the same kind you'd use to ease your aching feet in a footbath.

Make a liquid root drench by dissolving 28g (oz) of Epsom salts in a cup of boiling water and stirring thoroughly. When the mixture is cool, add enough water to make 3.7 litres (1 gallon) of solution. Use this mixture to water the plant. Repeat in a month if the plant still hasn't flowered, but after that, wait until the following year and begin the treatment early in the season.

Use boiling water and stir well to thoroughly dissolve the Epsom salts. Add more boiling water if you don't succeed the first time.

Solution 2 Increase light levels

Shade slows growth and flowering in many plants. The obvious remedy — to get rid of the shade — is usually easier said than done. You can sometimes remove an unattractive tree or prune others (see page 48), but these solutions aren't always practicable, desirable, or, if the tree is in someone else's yard, possible.

The solution in these cases is to move the plant. If the sun can't come to it, it must go to the sun. Choose the new spot carefully; look at it at all times of day and during the entire growing season. If it's sunny in spring but shady in summer, for example, moving the plant to that spot may not be effective. Once you know that you have found the right place, move the plant in the spring in the colder areas and in the autumn in warmer places.

If the plant seems too large to move, try a nurseryman's trick. With a sharp spade, slice into the soil all around the plant. Begin in the spring if possible, and repeat this action every month thereafter. By the following spring or fall, the plant will have formed enough fibrous roots within the spaded circle so that it can withstand the move.

Solution 3 Increase temperatures

A warm-weather plant may be too cool to flower well. If this is the case, there are several possible remedies.

Begin by increasing soil temperatures. Lay a black plastic mulch over the entire root area, making certain that it doesn't cover the plant's crown. Hold it in place with ground staples — homemade or store-bought — because you can't cover the plastic a light-reflecting mulch.

Next, increase air temperatures around the plant. If possible, set up stakes around it and wrap a piece of construction-grade polyethylene around the stakes. Tape the polyethylene in place, leaving the top of the structure open so that plants don't die from roasting. Once the plant is in bloom, you can remove the plastic altogether if the weather is warmer, or, if not, cut some slits into the sides of the polyethylene to vent it