Ingredients to supercharge your gardens and lawns

Any chef, baker or culinary enthusiast will tell you baking is an art and believe it or not, our gardens and lawns are no different. They need a good mixture of ingredients, methodology and even a certain amount of cooking time – in the sun!

Apart from the traditional NPK nutrients, there are a number of materials that help with promoting healthy green gardens and lawns. Below you will find a list of ingredients you can use to supercharge your gardens and lawns. Neighbour envy, here we come!

The benefits of using Zeolites on lawns and gardens

Imagine a fertiliser battery for your lawns and gardens that charges nutrients when they’re available, holds onto them so they don’t evaporate or get lost to run-off and then releases them depending on a plant’s needs. This is precisely what VolcaMin Zeolite does, it acts like a fertiliser battery.

VolcaMin Zeolites are natural volcanic minerals that are the result of the chemical reaction caused when molten lava and thick ash flow into the ocean following an eruption. As one of the few negatively charged minerals found in nature, VolcaMin Zeolite has a very unique structure. With its negative ionic charge, positive charged cations like ammonium, potassium, magnesium and calcium are naturally attracted to VolcaMin Zeolite.

Unaffected by temperature, VolcaMin Zeolite reduces the leaching of nutrients, particularly in warm and tropical conditions, and holds them for the plant to use. With highly porous properties, VolcaMin Zeolite is an excellent capillary distributor of water, assisting with infiltration and holding water higher in pots, evenly distributing water and nutrients.

Fulvic acid

Described as the ‘missing link’ in plant nutrition, fulvic acid is an incredibly versatile product that is considered the ultimate nutrient booster - just one single fulvic acid molecule is capable of carrying 60 or more minerals and trace elements directly to cells!

As a naturally occurring organic acid found in humus, the highly nutritious layer of decomposing earth, Fulvic acid is commonly associated with humic acid, as they are both types of humic substances that come from humus.

Known as a vehicle for vitamins and minerals, fulvic acid helps absorb and put nutrients to better use. Fulvic acid is quite a unique organism that is able to pass through cellular membranes with ease, thus boosting the absorption and assimilation of other nutrients and minerals. In nature, fulvic acid helps nutrients and minerals absorb through a plant’s cell walls.

While plants are able to produce many of their own vitamins, fulvic acid acts as a supplement, significantly improving the nutrient uptake. As fulvic acid fans, we have a selection of products including Fulvic Acid Concentrated Premium Powder, Fulvic Acid Liquid or Quantum H.

How Humic acid helps healthy gardens and lawns

Humic acid is one of the champions of lawn and garden care, providing plants and soil with a concentrated dose of essential nutrients, vitamins and trace elements in an incredibly organic and natural manner. 

Using Humic in your yard comes with a number of benefits including increasing root growth, stimulating beneficial microbes while reducing harmful ones, increasing soil moisture retention, improving the soil and strengthening a plant’s immune system. Basically, Humic acid retains moisture and nutrients in the root zone and helps the plant put them to good use.

Plant Doctor has a number of Humic products that include Quantum H, Humic Powder, Seaweed Secrets and Champion Flowers, Fruits and Roots. These products can be used at any time of the year on all plants and can be applied to all crops, vegetables, trees and vines.

Iron

Iron, represented by Fe on the Periodic Table, is a vital micro-nutrient that plants require to form chlorophyll. Simply put, chlorophyll is what gives plants, lawns and algae their green colour. Without iron, chlorophyll cannot be produced and will result in leaves turning yellowish in colour.

In short, lawns and gardens can be iron deficient. An iron deficiency doesn’t always mean there’s a lack of iron in the soil, but that the plant is unable to absorb it. This could be due to a soil pH level that’s too high or low, overuse of phosphorus, manganese, copper and zinc, waterlogging and excessive thatch.

Plant Doctor has an entire blog dedicated to how to go about ironing your lawn, so if you think this is an issue you’re experiencing, check it out here.

Seaweed or kelp help for lawns

Seaweed, or kelp, one of its many different variants, is an indispensable bio-stimulant and terrific fertiliser. Seaweed contains complex carbohydrates, which promote good and active soil life. This helps stimulate the microbial fungi in the soil, assisting plants in their uptake of nutrients and helps defends plants from soil borne diseases. Containing natural plant hormones, seaweed is a very effective measure for preventing transplant shock whenever you move a plant around the garden.

As a core component of plant health, seaweed has many other benefits including, increasing brix levels, improving flowering and fruiting, increasing a plant’s general health, helping root stimulation and providing bio-protection via root-zone stimulation.

Of course, the rockstar of our seaweed range is our Seaweed Secrets, but we have many other kelp products including the NatraKelp range found here.

Liquid worm castings

Where there’s worms there’s life! Although worms don’t produce nutrients, what they consume they convert into vermicastings – one of nature’s finest soil conditioners. Worm castings contain millions of beneficial bacteria and other organisms which are essential to soil and plant health.

Our Worm Magic is brewed from worm castings and is supercharged with humic and fulvic acid. This can be used on all lawns and plants including vegetables, herbs, fruit, potted plants and natives.