I'm going to use Epsom Salts to try to turn my side yard blue (more Studying the science in my yard.

[ecofarm]

I didn't say it was science. Science explains why I'm expecting the result I am.

Ignorance explains your expectations, not science. There's no way flowers and grass consumed all the magnesium and it ain't leeching away that much. That's just a fact. That's why the guy said "a nail". You need a placebo.

You've been salting the area. Low pH means no magnesium bioavailability. That's what's happening.

"I salt my lawn and lack magnesium uptake. Must need more salt." No. I don't think so.

 

[Mr Person]

It's been far too long since I took chemistry....

An awful lot of google results agree that epsom salts are usually PH neutral because of what happens during uptake, but also agree that excessively low (or high) PH can reduce magnesium bioavailability.

MYTH Series: Epsom Salt Decreases the pH of Growing Media | PRO-MIX Greenhouse Growing

Epsom salt is used by many growers as a fertilizer supplement to provide magnesium and sulfate when they are low in the fertilizer solution

www.pthorticulture.com

Will Adding Epsom Salts Make Soil More Acidic?

Epsom salts contain sulfur and magnesium, and you can add them to the soil when it's...

homeguides.sfgate.com

Epsom Salt and pH Levels in Soil

Used by many gardeners as a supplemental fertilizer for vegetables and ornamentals, Epsom...

homeguides.sfgate.com

Coffee grounds, eggshells and Epsom salts in the home garden

Three common "remedies" may or may not be helpful in the garden.

extension.umn.edu

At any rate, OP seems to have done a good amount of guesswork in identifying magnesium depletion as the cause of less flowering. What about average rainfall in various months? Temperature? Possible environmental contaminents (did a neighbor use a broadleaf killer that washed onto your property?)




That said....

The salt I use now is extremely acid. While hydrated aluminum is weakly basic, sulfuric acid is close to as extreme a pH as you can get, when diluted with rain water. In 7 years in this house I've been feeding one of my Hydrangeas the aluminum salt of sulfuric acid & it hasn't hurt anything

.....that's for lowering PH! Now it makes sense. Epsom Salts aren't affecting your soil PH, that aluminum salt is, and once you knock PH too low you easily get iron and magnesium deficiencies. Adding more magnesium isn't going to help. It won't get uptaken. (

In fact, having too much magnesium will give you a second problem: inhibited calcium uptake.

Guess what else isn't good: too much iron. So you may end up causing either two or three problems when you had one with the epsom salt switchover plan.




Test that soil PH.....that was good advice. Like, now.

 

[JacksinPA]

It's been far too long since I took chemistry....

An awful lot of google results agree that epsom salts are usually PH neutral because of what happens during uptake, but also agree that excessively low (or high) PH can reduce magnesium bioavailability.

MYTH Series: Epsom Salt Decreases the pH of Growing Media | PRO-MIX Greenhouse Growing

Epsom salt is used by many growers as a fertilizer supplement to provide magnesium and sulfate when they are low in the fertilizer solution

www.pthorticulture.com

Will Adding Epsom Salts Make Soil More Acidic?

Epsom salts contain sulfur and magnesium, and you can add them to the soil when it's...

homeguides.sfgate.com

Epsom Salt and pH Levels in Soil

Used by many gardeners as a supplemental fertilizer for vegetables and ornamentals, Epsom...

homeguides.sfgate.com

Coffee grounds, eggshells and Epsom salts in the home garden

Three common "remedies" may or may not be helpful in the garden.

extension.umn.edu

At any rate, OP seems to have done a good amount of guesswork in identifying magnesium depletion as the cause of less flowering. What about average rainfall in various months? Temperature? Possible environmental contaminents (did a neighbor use a broadleaf killer that washed onto your property?)




That said....



.....that's for lowering PH! Now it makes sense. Epsom Salts aren't affecting your soil PH, that aluminum salt is, and once you knock PH too low you easily get iron and magnesium deficiencies. Adding more magnesium isn't going to help. It won't get uptaken. (

In fact, having too much magnesium will give you a second problem: inhibited calcium uptake.

Guess what else isn't good: too much iron. So you may end up causing either two or three problems when you had one with the epsom salt switchover plan.




Test that soil PH.....that was good advice. Like, now.

The weather turned mild & sunny today so I plan to broadcast Epsom Salts (magnesium sulfate USP) in a ~400 square foot area in my side yard that is visible from the bathroom window & where the blue flowers appeared in April. I bought a 5 pound bag from Amazon & I got an excellent sifter for Xmas.

My thoughts are that this invasive creeper is obligate for Mg & that the major initial flowering about 4 years ago as well as far less flowering in subsequent years is probable evidence that the traces of that metal in my yard's soil were consumed. Why that metal was not returned to the soil after is unknown. It's only a theory but I really enjoyed seeing the flowers.

Looking at plant systematics indicates that the creeper & Hydrangea are not related, indicating the independent evolution of the 2 metal-dependent blue-flowering species rather than descent from a common ancestor, which is very interesting. Charles Darwin could have used these 2 species when he wrote Origin. Having both in my yard was an unexpected. but pleasant surprise.

 

[JacksinPA]

The weather turned mild & sunny today so I plan to broadcast Epsom Salts (magnesium sulfate USP) in a ~400 square foot area in my side yard that is visible from the bathroom window & where the blue flowers appeared in April. I bought a 5 pound bag from Amazon & I got an excellent sifter for Xmas.

My thoughts are that this invasive creeper is obligate for Mg & that the major initial flowering about 4 years ago as well as far less flowering in subsequent years is probable evidence that the traces of that metal in my yard's soil were consumed. Why that metal was not returned to the soil after is unknown. It's only a theory but I really enjoyed seeing the flowers.

Looking at plant systematics indicates that the creeper & Hydrangea are not related, indicating the independent evolution of the 2 metal-dependent blue-flowering species rather than descent from a common ancestor, which is very interesting. Charles Darwin could have used these 2 species when he wrote Origin. Having both in my yard was an unexpected. but pleasant surprise.

I finished broadcasting the salt & used about half of the 5 pound bag. While this is plant (Asiatic Day Flower) is classed as an invasive species, Epsom Salt is not a fertilizer. Looking forward to next April to see results.

 

[JacksinPA]

To demonstrate the blue color which appears to be very common in plants, here are some pix of the Hydrangea blooms. Without aluminum sulfate these flowers would be colorless. Also is a diagram of the blue complex.

Will post pix of the Asiatic Day Flower bloom in April hopefully.

 

[JacksinPA]

To demonstrate the blue color which appears to be very common in plants, here are some pix of the Hydrangea blooms. Without aluminum sulfate these flowers would be colorless. Also is a diagram of the blue complex.

Will post pix of the Asiatic Day Flower bloom in April hopefully.

Here is the Asiatic Day Flower bloom image. Notice that the blue color is almost the same as the Hydrangea bloom in the preceding post. But this plant depends on magnesium atoms instead of the aluminum in Hydrangea.

The exciting thing about studying these plants are that they both are in my yard.

 

[JacksinPA]

10 lbs is ridiculous. Check your math.

I used about half of a 5 pound bag over about 400 square feet. There should be enough Mg for years. It was hardly overkill.

 

[JacksinPA]

Sprinkling some Epsom salts in a garden shouldn’t be a big chore.

Personally, I’d start with a pound or so, and distribute more on one end and little to none on the other end to see if it actually worked. And I’d do it with a hand spreader.

I used a common sifter & about 2.5 pounds over about 400 square feet. It was not overkill. Besides, I needed the exercise.

 

[JacksinPA]

You’re confusing sodium chloride salt with the generic term ‘salt’, which is what fertilizers are made of.

Potash is a salt- potassium base. Phosphate? Ammonium phosphate- a salt.

adding Mg doesn’t sound crazy, but 10-20 lbs over 500 sf is! I’m guessing about 5% of that is still overkill. It’s a trace mineral.

My degree is in chemistry. I'm familiar with these common chemicals. Sodium chloride (common table salt) was used by the Romans to poison the fields of the Carthiginians after their defeat. We'll see if my application hurts my grass with the small amount used.

 

[Threegoofs]

My degree is in chemistry. I'm familiar with these common chemicals. Sodium chloride (common table salt) was used by the Romans to poison the fields of the Carthiginians after their defeat. We'll see if my application hurts my grass with the small amount used.

We’ll see! Interested to hear the result of the experiment.

 

[JacksinPA]

The blue magnesium complex in Asiatic Dayflower, unlike Hydrangea which needs 1 aluminum atom per complex, involves multiple (6) magnesium atoms. See

commelinin This blue complex is stable enough to be used in printing in Japan.

 

[JacksinPA]

Sounds complicated.

Not really but you may need some basic chem to get a grip on the behavior of these 2 plants & their blue flowers & how it relates to acidic metal salts.

 

[JacksinPA]

Consumption of magnesium by Asiatic Dayflower

As a rough guess, I would estimate that there were 1,000 blooms per square foot. So the 400 square feet I am studying would have 400,000 blooms each day, each bloom consuming 6 magnesium ions. That would be 2,400,000 atoms per day used. With an atomic weight of 24.312 Daltons, that would be 58.349 million Daltons of the metal consumed each day, or 1,750 million Daltons in a month (or 1.75 billion). I'll have to calculate what that equals in grams & pounds but this helps explain why that patch of lawn became magnesium-depleted in the first years it was there.

As a rough guess, I got 6.4081721326132537e-18 grams of magnesium used per month, which is a very small amount. This is only a very rough estimate which may not be close to the right amount.

 

[JacksinPA]

Consumption of magnesium by Asiatic Dayflower

As a rough guess, I would estimate that there were 1,000 blooms per square foot. So the 400 square feet I am studying would have 400,000 blooms each day, each bloom consuming 6 magnesium ions. That would be 2,400,000 atoms per day used. With an atomic weight of 24.312 Daltons, that would be 58.349 million Daltons of the metal consumed each day, or 1,750 million Daltons in a month (or 1.75 billion). I'll have to calculate what that equals in grams & pounds but this helps explain why that patch of lawn became magnesium-depleted in the first years it was there.

As a rough guess, I got 6.4081721326132537e-18 grams of magnesium used per month, which is a very small amount. This is only a very rough estimate which may not be close to the right amount.

The actual amount of magnesium used by the flower is a lot larger due to the fact that each flower has thousands or millions of the blue complex needed to see the actual blue flower.

 

[JacksinPA]

The two plants in my yard, Hydrangea & Commelina, are unusual in the plant kingdom for having its deep blue flower color caused by a supermoleclar complex of both plant chemicals & met atoms such as aluminum & magnesium. This has gotten me interested in other plants that have blue colors resulting from complexes of plant chemicals & met atoma extracted from the soil. The blue cornflower (

My first new plant is the Blue Cornflower, whose blue complex (called protocyanin) is not made up of just one metal but four: one of ferric iron (Fe+3), one magnesium & two calcium. A third plant is Salvia, which uses aluminum atoms in the same way as Hydrangea.

 

[JacksinPA]

Another blue-flowered plant that also relies on complexes between metal ions & organic plant chemicals, the

Ferric ions involved in the flower color development of the Himalayan blue poppy, Meconopsis grandis.​

This plant uses ferric (Fe+3) & aluminum ions Al+3) combined with organic plant chemicals to yield the vivid blue color.

 

[Ug make hammer]

You're trying to grow a weed, but what you don't know is that weeds NEVER do what you want them to.

If your pH is also a bit low (acidic) then you can use lime (very cheap) or wood ash (free).

 

[JacksinPA]

You're trying to grow a weed, but what you don't know is that weeds NEVER do what you want them to.

If your pH is also a bit low (acidic) then you can use lime (very cheap) or wood ash (free).

Both blue-flowering plants in my study prefer acidic soil.

Magnesium sulfate (Epsom Salts) is very soluble in water. We've had plenty of rain so the salt I broadcast at the end of the year has had a chance to both soak in as well as spread. I plan to take pix of that patch of lawn next month & then in April to show the dayflower blooms, which only last one day.