Best flower food?

[Warmheart]

My 4 x 10 ft flower bed gets lovely afternoon sun, and even a bit of morning sun.
I'm in Massachusetts, so the soil is rocky. The bed is mulched.

I can go to a garden place or hardware store to buy flower food. What kind or brand is best?
Is stuff to sprinkle at the base of plants best, or a leaf spray for Foliant feeding?

Starring in my flower bed are:

A colossal blue sage flower plant called "Blue Hill"
Gorgeous red-and-yellow blanket flowers (Gaillardia)
A black eyed Susan
A pinkish Echinacea
A Lemon Balm plant
A mystery...... I forgot what I planted. It's gonna be BIG.

Right now, none are blooming, but I want to give them the best food.

Thank you for flower food ideas.

 

[Mark56]

I use liquid seaweed for general feed & tomato food for when in flower as it's high in potash

 

[Plantdoctor]

I think it is more important to get the soil in shape first,most flowering plants do not need any supplementary feeding in the ground, different if grown in containers etc.

 

[Beth_B]

I have pretty good soil, but I top dress flower and veg beds with compost and some mulch in winter, gives the nutrients time to leach into the soil.

For things in containers I've been using Dr Earth brand (organic.)

 

[Mark56]

For the ground I mulch with well rotted manure or compost too. Sprinkle with fish, blood & bone in Spring. I thought you were talking of containers.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Right now, none are blooming, but I want to give them the best food.

To be honest, I can't imagine why they'd need it. Gaillardia, Rudbeckia, and Echinacea are all strong natives. They can thrive in poor soil. Lemon Balm grows like a weed, though technically it is.

I grow Gaillardia, Rudbeckia and Echinacea and don't do anything with them. They thrive. One of the reasons being that they're native to the US, so they do well in our conditions without any extra help. As long as they're in the right light conditions and the soil isn't too wet, they should do great on their own.


I also have Lemon Balm in the yard. It wound up there by itself and grows like crazy.