Can I add ericaceous feed to normal soil?

[oxcat1]

I have just bought some new plants for my shady garden, including a new Acer (I killed the last!), Azalea, Skimmia and something else. Everything is in pots as it is a concrete yard and I planted them into containers using normal soil (not new compost) which I planned to enrich with good feed. I also bought some new bog-standard compost but I was too impatient to wait for it to arrive before potting them!

I have now realised that these are all Ericaceous plants. I have bought ericaceous liquid feed - will that be sufficient to 'sort out' the standard soil I have used, or will I need to buy new ericaceous compost and disturb them again?

I think you will need to repot into ericaceous mix, the feed won't miraculously convert the compost. Some plants might be more tolerant, but the ones you mentioned would be far better in the right compost. Sorry!

My Acers grow happily on my London Clay soil with the occasional top dressing of ericaeous compost and feed. I have lots of Acers in pots and find the ericaeous a bit too fine for that and prone to dryness. I would not bother reporting, just scrape some top soil of and add some fresh compost.

This is

You need potting compost not soil from the ground. Report and start again

You can add things to normal soil to make it more acid like used ground coffee or pine needles Gardening know how article link

I have beautiful acers growing in my back garden in normal soil and a blueberry that does well too - it had a generous amount of compost with it though.

Many thanks. Looks like I'll need to buy more compost then. 80 litres of stuff I can't really use. Hey ho!

@florentina1 your garden is beautiful! I had a lovely acer that I had kept in a pot (and moved house repeatedly!) for about 10/15 years, but in a fit of enthusiasm last year I dosed it heavily with tomato feed, thinking it would appreciate some nourishment. Over about five days it lost all its leaves and died! I kept it until this Spring, just in the desperate hope of some tiny shoots of hope, but no. Dead as. Grrrr!!

IME acers are pretty undemanding. I have one (huge now) in a small raised bed, with a bit of access to ground through the bottom, plus 2 others in pots which look much too small - all different varieties - they are half starved really but seem very happy like that

I only use ericaceous for blueing hydrangeas

Repot into ericaceous compost and use the 80ltrs of compost you've already bought to mulch your garden.

@llangennith : I can't mulch the garden: it's just pots in a very shady small town patio-space, overcast by tall buildings on all sides. It's got a concrete floor and poor drainage - it is definitely easier to grow mushrooms than flowers in this space!

My downstairs neighbours put acers in a bed . It is London clay ,improved about 20 yrs ago by a previous occupant .

Current neighbours are lovely but don't garden at all .The acers are fine .

As is the ground elder .But that's another story .