see how it goes Rohima if not write miracle grow down on a piece of a paper and take it with you next time you go to the garden centre.
I find you cant have more than enough feed for the plants

Grow more is a balanced fertiliser used mostly on Vegetables rather than flowers. We do sprinkle it over the borders each year in Spring to give the plants an early boost. Miracle Grow is a sort of quick fix fertiliser which is absorbed through the leaves as well as by the roots. The difference is the time it takes for the plant to take up the nutriments provided I suppose.

To be honest, if your plants are in soil rather than pots, and the soil is in good condition then feeding them is not really necessary. In fact a lot of the fertiliser is just washed straight out of the soil by the next rain fall long before the plants can use it. There are parts of our garden which have never been artificially fed with fertiliser in 14 years and the plants are thriving. They do get mulched with compost each year and that is all they need. Pot grown plants are different, but even there the food can be leached out by watering.
Having said that, if a plant is not doing well because it lacks food then feed the plant until you can feed the soil.

I agree with what owdboggy says. Potatoes love growmore. It was developed to help people grow for victory during WW2.

I've used Growmore for years in the garden, and not on veggies either - in spring, I always go round and turn the soil over, incorporating Growmore as I go, along with any humus rich material such as garden compost, leaf mould, etc. I also add a handful or two when planting out at the bottom of the hole. Growmore granules are, as Owdboggy says, a balanced formula, and take six weeks to break down, so you don't need to repeat the treatment in the garden more than once a year, really. I also use Growmore granules in pots if that's all I've got, mix them in with the compost. Miracle Gro general purpose is a liquid so is more readily available for plants to use quickly, but will need replenishing much more often - I generally use that only in pots, and not that often. As for summer bedding in pots, well now, that's a different story, I use various things for those.

...NOW you know I am going to ask you to elaborate on that last point, Bamboo!

WHAT do you recommend for summer bedding in pots? i am planting out pots, hanging baskets, pouches etc as we speak....and I always put in some Growmore...should I be using something else?

I gave all the hostas, heuacheras...in fact, all perennials.... a similar feed in Spring as well as a mulch with compost. Is that sufficient?

In answer to the last part, yes, that's fine.
As for pots and tubs (summer bedding only) I'm doing a bit of an experiment this year. There's a pic in my photos of a basket that had been fed with Algoflash for Geraniums, which is now longer available in UK. The NPK was 6-6-6 with various trace elements, and the closest thing I've found to it so far is Miracle Gro All Purpose concentrated liquid plant food, in a yellow bottle with a green cap. The NPK on that is 6-6-5, so not quite the same, though the trace elements are, but I'll try that with one lot. Then I have relatives in France - they have today got me some Algoflash - one for Geraniums (changed now to 5-6-8) and one for Balcony plants (NPK 5-6-7). When I get in a week or two, I'll be checking the rest of the trace elements to compare, and will try those on other pots and troughs to see what happens. I will admit though, that even with the Algoflash, I seem to remember using it twice as often as recommended on the bottle, but the real trick with summer bedding in baskets particularly is being rigorous about watering - twice a day during hot weather, and the baskets seem to do better when not in full sun all day, with about half a day's sun minimum. Not sure how much that helps you though!

i often use growmore in the general prep of the soil and really like it.

All this info is helpful Bamboo. I actually bought some fish, blood and bone to try as you recommended it so highly. I am going to give it to a clematis montana rubens which fills its space with no attempt to spread itself around as my other montanas do. It will be interesting to see the difference. Might your having to use more than the recommended dose of Algoflash be to do with the different weather conditions eg we get more rain which will wash it away more easily.

Interesting!..... as I have noticed that the hanging baskets, pots etc at the front of the house which are in full sun all day in summer are less successful than the ones at the back of the house which are in shade or semi shade for half of the day. I do water a lot in the summer...twice a day in hot weather...hubby moans about the water bills! It's an expensive business...this gardening lark! LOL.

Yes Izzy gardeners with lots of containers are always wanting it to rain, if they have waterbutts......like me, and a water meter. I just take a few less showers, and use eco liquid, and put the wash up water on needy plants in the ground. I use compost for the ground and Miraclgro for pots. It can get very dry in Essex.

We are often away in summer, I use water retention granules and they work well.

Does anyone remember the water shortage many years ago? I threw all water into the garden from cooking veg, bathwater, rinse water from a twintub, even tea dregs were saved. The plants were all grateful and none complained.
Off the subject.....sorry.

Thank you every one. I will buy Miracle Grow next time i go to the garden centre and will Use the Growmore when planting or re planting. I agree, you can never have enough plant feed. Plants can be really greedy things. Then again, you get what you put in. It's going to be feed feed feed from now on.

So everyone ignored my comment about not needing to feed if the plant is in good soil!
By the way determined Vegetarians will not use Bllod fish and bone of course since it is manufactured from the remains of slaughtered animals.

I know it can get very frustrating Owdboggy. Run off from fertiliser even makes our local 'river' in a cement conduit (flood control) grow weed on the bottom. I turn sumersaults trying to be eco freako for donkeys years. I tell myself the moorhen family and ducks found it congenial and the little bird bobbing in the 'river' likes it. If the weed not there, likely they would stay further up where it is an old fashioned stream.

The thing that gets me all the time about the use of fertilisers in gardens is the overkill. Farmers rarely put fertiliser on fields until the soil has been tested to see exactly how much and what is needed. The cost factor makes it necessary alone and different crops need different things. (Very Scientific this!). Yet gardeners just pour all sorts of stuff on their soil without ever testing it.
I can give an example, we are getting Bitter pit in one of our apples. Cause? The tree cannot take up Calcium from the soil. Action? Tested the soil, it is acidic so no calcium in it. So, we drilled holes in the soil round the tree and filled them up with lime. Hopefully this will cure the problem. If not then we will try something else, BUT, the first thing we did was to TEST the soil.
Another problem rarely addressed is how to make soil LESS fertile. Now there is a subject for discussion.

I once used a well known (at that time) weed killer. It seemed to encourage the weeds. A friend said if it is not needed to kill the weeds it gets watered down by the rain and feeds the next lot. Some truth in that I think. She thought I had used too much although I followed the instructions carefully. As you say it depends where you are starting from.

Scotsgran, re the Algoflash, I only used it on hanging baskets, which didn't get much rain anyway, and I used more than they said because I wanted a great result - and it worked.
Owdboggy, I agree that as little food in the ground as necessary is the best way to go - soil conditioning is the most important part of plant growing as far as I'm concerned, and that means adding lots of humus rich material whenever you get the chance, rather than overkill with tons of nitrates - I only topdress with Growmore once a year, in Spring, otherwise, I take care of the soil.