About Deciduous Trees

• Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the autumn and go into a dormant period, budding out in new leaves when spring comes. With the wide variety of deciduous trees available, you can grow trees that begin with a vivid display of flowers before leafing out, trees that bear delicious fruit or trees that turn a blaze of color in the fall. Because of the distinctive growing cycle of deciduous trees, the feeding and nutritional requirements are different than those for evergreen trees. All trees need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium, but deciduous trees, because of the production of flowers and fruit, require more phosphorus and potassium than evergreen trees.
  
  

About Evergreen Trees

• Evergreen trees, whether conifers or broad-leaf, retain their foliage year-round. Evergreen trees need less fertilizing than deciduous trees and may not need additional feeding at all. If your evergreen tree is established but shows slow growth, shorter needles than normal or poor color, feeding the tree will improve the evergreen. Evergreens growing in poor soil, like clay or sandy soil, will benefit from routine feeding. Evergreen tree fertilizer contains a higher nitrogen value than phosphorus or potassium because of the year-round foliage evergreen trees maintain.
  
  

About Tree Spikes

• Fertilizing tree spikes consist of time-released fertilizer compressed into a hard spike that resembles a tent spike with a pointed end. You need to drive the tree fertilizing spikes completely into the ground around the tree you wish to slowly feed. Place the spikes at the drip line, where the outer roots of the tree will be, and space them about 3 feet apart. As you routinely water, the fertilizer spikes slowly dissolve, releasing the fertilizer into the soil to feed the roots. Tree fertilizing spikes are most effective for younger trees than large, older trees because the younger tree roots are closer to the soil surface to receive the nutrients.
  
  

Use The Correct Spike

• Tree fertilizer spikes are formulated with the correct balance of nutrients for specific types of trees. There are tree fertilizing spikes for fruit trees, flowering trees, deciduous trees and evergreens. Using fruit or deciduous tree fertilizer spikes to feed an evergreen tree will not harm the evergreen but it will feed it more phosphorus and potassium than the needed nitrogen for an evergreen. The higher phosphorus and potassium will strengthen and increase root development and growth. However, evergreen trees thrive with high levels of nitrogen to support and grow the green foliage of the tree and deciduous tree fertilizing spikes simply do not contain an adequate amount.