Even if I wanted to, I could not quarrel with the advice you received at the UBC Forum. Those helping you obviously know their business when it comes to Acers, and I suspect a good amount of other plant material. I learned quite a bit just reading through the thread. One thing I tend to forget, is that a young tree to me is up to 20 years old (a bonsai thing) while a young tree to you is likely considerably closer to a cutting - chronologically, maybe in the 3-5 year range. It is always better to allow a plant to get its feet under it before you try to push it, and even then, it's difficult to build a case for pushing. I rarely fertilize plants grown in the garden, and only fertilize container plantings according to signs from the plants that they are lacking something. I would tend to agree that young Acers, grown in a highly organic mix, would not benefit from large doses of N, but they do need some, especially if you are switching to a soil that is only 1/3 organic, but I would still defer to the advice given on the other forum. The benefit of using rainwater for containers comes in the form of fewer/less dissolved metal salts, lower alkalinity, and lower pH when compared to tap water. If you have an unlimited supply, by all means - use it on the in-ground plants; if not - save it for the containers. I'm not sure how long rain water will "last" in containers - probably a good long while - all summer. I have a friend who puts a couple of goldfish in his rain butts to keep mosquito larvae under control & they live there all summer. I suppose it might depend on what organic things find their way into the containers, but kept clean, I can't imagine a problem. If you're concerned, a little food grade H2O2 now & then should clean up anything anaerobic that might be thinking of causing trouble and will certainly not harm the plants (or the fish) ;o). In fact, they will thank you for the extra O2 that forms from the loosely held O- atom. ;o) Al

I can't find a copy of a Mag I Cal label anywhere on the net, but I believe it contains only 35% calcitic lime. Advise you read the label and do the calculations. The recommendation was 40# of lime/m. That could be a lot of bags of JG product at a higher price than than you need to pay. Plus, as dchall said, you may need to apply dolomitic lime rather than calcitic. Advise you stay away from adding boron without professional guidance. It needs to be applied in VERY small doses (grams vs pounds) and too much will make your lawn a wasteland. Edit: "Boron at .35 PPM. Is this having a negative impact on my lawn?" Not likely. Grass needs very little boron for healthy growth. Adjustment in a boron level that is above .20 ppm may give fractional improvement but is for the lawn perfectionist who is trying to improve from 99% to 99.5%. IMHO. This post was edited by yardtractor1 on Wed, Jun 11, 14 at 12:03

I may be mistaken, but I think mushroom compost is often high pH, so the pH level may be a result of the mushroom compost you added. If so, it may be a temporary change. If there is a lot of mortar in the soil, that could be raising the pH, too, and that would be longer lasting. 7.2 is a little high, but it's not all that bad, so I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you're trying to grow plants that need acidic conditions or unless you're seeing chlorosis. I think PA usually has low pH soil, so the natural acidity of the soil should probably lower the pH over time, anyway. If you do add sulfur, you'll want to make sure you work it into the soil. Just putting it on top allows too much of the sulfur to be lost into the atmosphere (I think as SO2). The sulfur you'd want is called soil sulfur and is probably not very common in PA. However, the sulfur you use for your hollyhocks will probably work. I think the main difference is that soil sulfur is usually coarser than the dust that you're using. If I were in your shoes, I would probably skip the sulfur unless I saw signs that it was causing problems. Even then, since sulfur takes so long to work, the pH may have dropped on its own by the time the sulfur kicks in, anyway. As far as the N depletion, many soil tests don't measure N. N is nearly always low, because it is highly soluble and transient in the soil. Blood meal is fast acting, so it's no less drastic than urea, really. The difference is that it's 14% N and urea is 46% N (I think those are the right numbers), so you'd need a little more than 3X as much blood meal as urea for the same amount of N. Since urea is more concentrated, it's easier to cause burning with it, but blood meal can burn, also. In answer to your question, since blood meal is fast acting, it can give enough N as long as you use enough of it. If they told you to add 2 lbs of urea, you'd want to add about 6.5 lbs of blood meal for the same N boost.

Well, I went and sprinkled a bunch of it all over the plants, with the exception of the vegetable garden and my blueberries. It's the best I can do in this situation as you know. I'll let you know what happens.