Home - Garden
What Epsom Salt Can Do To Help Your Avocado Tree Thrive
By KALEIGH BRILLON
Avocado trees are fun to grow in your backyard if you live in a warm region. Use Epsom salt as a simple and cost-effective way to keep these tropical plants well fertilized.
Epsom salt will add magnesium and sulfur to the soil, but it lacks nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (the NPK in fertilizers), so your trees won’t get everything they need.
Supplement with Epsom salt a few times a year. The trees benefit from fertilizer that is 4 to 6% magnesium, so use 2 tablespoons of salt for every 9 square feet of soil and roots.
Epsom salt dissolves in water, so add it to a bucket of water to use on your plants. Use at-home soil tests to check the pH to ensure that it isn’t making the soil too acidic.
For best results, feed Epsom salt directly to the roots of the plant rather than to the leaves, as the latter method can burn the leaves in hot weather.
Magnesium deficiencies, which will reveal themselves via yellow leaves, are typically only a problem in sandy or overworked soil. Don’t use Epsom salt outside of these conditions.
Misusing Epsom salt can do damage to your plants, as too much magnesium can cause plants not to take up calcium properly. Excess magnesium can also cause groundwater pollution.