Confusing Fertilizer

People are often mystified by plant food. There are three numbers on all fertilizers, like this 10-10-10. These numbers always stand for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These correlate to leaf growth, root growth and plant health.
If one is diligent with their plant, one can feed one's plant any plant food whatsoever.
However, if one is poor at plant care, even a perfect nutrient mix can weaken or kill a plant.
Fertilizers are made of salts, which dissolve in water. The plant is salty too, usually more so then the nutrient solution. When the salty water touches the salty plant, all the water involved (and the nutrients) go to the saltiest area.
When the plant is salty, then the plant absorbs the water and nutrients.
If one is over feeding one's plants, then there will be an accumulation of unabsorbed salts in the soil. One day this accumulation will result in the water/nutrient solution to be saltier then the plant. In this case the salty water inside the plant will be drawn outside the plant by the salty water/nutrient mix. When this sad thing happens, the plant will dehydrate, even though it is surrounded by water.

Garry Oaks - a solution?

This year I de-budded half of my garry oaks, in December. By de-budding, I refer to the practice of removing the terminal bud from the branches of the tree.
Why? The horse chestnut has a very dominant apical bud. So much so that the horse chestnut will grow as a single branch for many years - with no branching at all. The solution to causing the tree to branch is to remove the apical but before or while the but is swelling. The secondary buds then burst forth bringing many branches in many direction, each of which with their own apical dominance.
The garry oak seeding is a slow growing, stringy tree. Removing the buds could promote branching, and more branches also means the tree puts on wight faster.
My de-budded garry oaks are developing about 5 to 7 branches per twig, up from 1 to 3. I think the technique will help.

Surficant

There is a new product - surficant. I looked it up on wikipedia. It does three things.
1) it helps nutrients emulsify with mixed base - if it is an oil/water nutrient/base mixture.
2) it can coat the leave of a plant; reducing transpiration and reducing the chances of leaf fungi.
3) and most interestingly, it reduces water tension. Water tension is caused by the magnetic properties of H2O. This is why we have such large holes in our pots - the water holds onto itself and does not drain from the pot unless the hole is really big - in which case lots of water comes out at one time, which pulls more water out with it. Water tension is why we have to water some plants twice or three times. The water hits the surface, and because the first part beads off, it all beads off in one magnetic lump.
So surficant reduces water tension.