Question
Hi Kenneth, Thanks in advance for your time.  I'm concerned about soil conditions in one of my beds.  I planted some Spireas and day lilies last year.  Now they are showing too much growth and the day lilies foliage is so light its almost like a neon green.  They seem to have flower buds but not many and they are small.  The spireas have shot up long, tall stems, but the leaves seem few and small and are not flowering.  I live in WI and have clay soil.  I use the free leaf compost my village offers as a mulch and did put on a thick layer about a month ago.  Do you think they may be experiencing too much nitrogen? or not enough iron?  Thanks again

Answer
It sounds like too little nitrogen.

Buy a 10-10-10 all purpose fertilizer and apply according to direction on lable.

Small leaves, long internodes, light green foliage all are tell tale signs of nitrogen deficiency.

Do not apply only nitrogen, however. An all purpose 10-10-10 fertilizer is what you should use on flowering plants. You can also add a 5-10-10 or 10-20-20 fertilizer instead. Don't add lawn fertilizer (29-3-4 for example). That is too much nitrogen.

Note: leaf litter does not have very much nitrogen and some of this may tie up nitrogen in the soil as it decompose. It is excellent as mulch, but if mixed throughly into the soil it can rob nitrogen from the plants.

It sounds to me like you need to fertilize. Very dark green foliage and very lush plants with many leaves but no flowers are the tell tale signs of too much nitrogen. It sounds like you have too little.

Sake good order: are the plants in heavy shade ? The plants you mention like full sun. If too much shade that can also explain the tall, skinny stems, and no flowers.

If shade is the problem, fertilizing will not rectify the problem although fertilizing is still required, but as a lighter dose. If the plants get 6+ hours of direct sun per day, then they get enough sun.

The problems with the spireas are going to be that growth is irreversable. Once they have grown tall and lanky this can not be reversed. If lack of fertilizer is the problem, you will surely see good response, especially in the daylilies, but you will not get a really nice show until next year. Once they have started to grow and look strange, it can not be reversed until the following year.