A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum The Rose Grower's Forum Banana peels

Has anyone ever heard of putting ground up or 'pureed' banana peels as fertilizer for roses? My neighbor said he did that at a previous home and just did it once in the spring. Someone told him about it. He said it seemed to do them a lot of good. But he also put 8-8-8 fertilizer on them, too, so I wonder which one really worked. :) I've never put anything but some Miracle Grow for roses on mine and they're doing fine.

BTW, my Joseph's Coat nearly died last year afer initial planting. What eventually saved it was digging a little 1-inch wide/deep trench all the way around about a foot from center and sprinkling a tablespoon of epsom salts in there and watering just a little. That was something else my neighbor told me. :) The advice the plant nursery lady gave me didn't help a bit.

The banana peel thing is good advice. I don't bother chopping or pureeing. I just toss the peels at the base of the shrubs. They brown and shrivel and blend in with the mulch in a short period of time. For some reason, aphids don't like them much. So they seem to stay away from the plants treated this way. We go through a lot of bananas here.
Epsom salts are good for most plants as well.

Aphids stay away from plants with banana peel put around them? Would that work for tomatoes? :)

I know the banana peels will not hurt the tomato plants. Give it a try.