I Need A Brew For Making A Plant Grow.

Mike Finley

No, I'm not talking about those type of plants!

I need a special fertilizer recipe to make English Ivy vines grow like wild fire. I've got a lot of these planted in our back yard and after 3 years they are only about 6 feet long, they need to grow to like 20 to cover some structures, at this rate I will have sold the house before they ever grow enough to enjoy them!

Humble Abode

Ivies love nitrogen. So if you buy a synthetic fertilizer get one where the first number is 20 or higher i/e 20-10-10 or 30-10-20.

But the best fertilizer you can get for any plant, especially outdoors, is an organic. Plants take exactly what they need from an organic fertilizer where as with a synthetic fertilizer there is a danger of over feeding.

Get yourself an organic fish oil (best) or seaweed oil (good) fertilizer and feed every two to three weeks during the growing season.

Do not spray it onto the foliage though as this may harm some ivies. Also never use either, fish or seaweed oil indoors, they stink like their names...

If you follow a good regimen you should be able to force rapid growth. Slow down or cut off entirely your feeding between late October and late March. Relax watering in these months as well. Even plants in your climate need a dormant period every "winter" in order to have vigorous growth during the spring and summer.

__________________
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor

Mike Finley

I want to put these plants on plant steroids. I've wasted 3 years waiting for them to grow and now it time for them to do it my way!

Do you think it is a good idea, bad or won't have any effect to cut the ground runners off. I heard if you cut the top of a bush it grows wider, if you trim it's width you stimulate it to grow taller. So would cutting the ground runners off stimulate the parts growing up the structures?

Humble Abode

A good organic fertilizer regimen and the dormancy (very important) is the way to go I think. It isn't steroids but it will, IMO, "maximize their growing potential" so to speak.

Yes definitely. When you prune a plant on the top or on the sides it thinks some animal is feeding on it. It will always over compensate in the places that aren't being fed upon. So if you systematically prune the lower, lateral shoots (every spring!) it will force more vigorous growth out the top.

__________________
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe. Kurt Vonnegut, (1922 - 2007) from the Novel 'Hocus Pocus'
The NAPP
Milwaukee Painting Contractor