How does fertilizer help flowers grow?

Answer 1

Fertilizer is like "bricks" (and we'll call them blocks - as in "building blocks" or "chemical building blocks") from which plants build their structures to maintain their lives, grow, and reproduce. Take the idea one step further. Visualize that the blocks are different colors, and the plant uses them in different proportions. Different plants, by extension, use blocks in proportions that are different from other plants. With these ideas in mind, think of the plant as "mining" these blocks out of the ground. The different blocks are necessary to the plant's life and to its health. Without certain ones, it dies, without others, its growth is stunted or changed in some way because it lacks sufficient blocks to "max out" and fully do its plant-thing. Fertilizer is designed to supplement what may be missing or in short supply in the soil. That way the plant has all the different blocks, and in sufficient quantity, to grow to the best of its ability. Different fertilizers are designed with different proportions of blocks in them to provide "extra stuff" to a particular plant 'cause it is known to use more of that "stuff" to grow well. And fertilizers are also designed or custom mixed to take a soil that has been depleted or simply lacks sufficient "stuff" in it to grow plants and re-invigorate that soil. That way it can once again support healthy growth in our non-animal friends . As a closing note, plants need water to facilitate the uptake and transport of nutrients (our "blocks") necessary for their life and health. And, in case it wasn't obvious, the nutrients must be water soluble to be useful to the plant.