fertilizer

[jacob.morgan78]

I plan to use a slow release fertilizer along with a biweekly fertilizer. Is there a brand, style, or type that is better than others for general bonsai use?

Recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!

 

[sikadelic]

Check the forums by searching in the bar at the top right. There are tons of discussions about fertilizer. Types, strengths, chemical, organic, etc.

 

[dick benbow]

if your a fan of Ryan Neil, it's organic, organic, organic.

If your budget can stand it and you have access, bio-gold can't be beaten.

I use a brand made locally and place it in tea bags for release with daily watering. About every 4- weeks I replace the bags.

It just makes sense to me personally, to have a little bit available every day as needed as opposed to say a big dump every week or two.

Nitrogen in fertilizer is the easiest of the components to decompose and wash out

 

[CHUCHIN]

RAPESEED CAKES!!!!

FISH FERTILIZER

really all you need to get it done....

 

[jk_lewis]

For the gazillionth time, your tree does NOT really care what you use if it has NPK and trace elements!

 

[cmeg1]

I prefer earth juice organics original grow and bloom cause' you can use them with every watering and go extra light or heavy.

 

[toadmyster223]

To EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET who resorts to the "just search it" response....



If you don't like communicating with other people, what are you doing on a forum? Do you really understand the concept?

 

[sikadelic]

To EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET who resorts to the "just search it" response....



If you don't like communicating with other people, what are you doing on a forum? Do you really understand the concept?

I assume you're referring to me since I replied with the idea to use the search function. It's actually the best idea for this forum as you will find an entire days worth of reading about it instead of the few replies this thread has generated in 12 hours.

It had nothing to do with not interacting with people on a forum....hell, I can BS with the best of em and really enjoy doing that. If somebody wants an answer about fertilizer on a bonsai forum, searching the threads will yield the best information since there are multiple threads about it. I'm not an expert on that so I wanted to give good advice based on what I do know...and that's reading these boards until my eyes hurt. At least that could get him going instead of waiting on a reply.

 

[toadmyster223]

I understand your logic, but I take that as a given when I approach a forum, and like to try to assume everyone else is at least as smart as I am.

 

[armetisius]

re: yet another fertilizer thread?

Had a marvelous response composed then decided it wasn't worth the effort.
Line up 10 cooks and you will get 30 recipes for gumbo.
Cajun proverb and very true.
Same applies here.
Nuff said.
a.

 

[GrimLore]

I plan to use a slow release fertilizer along with a biweekly fertilizer. Is there a brand, style, or type that is better than others for general bonsai use?

Recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!

Back on track here, what type of substrate(s) and plant(s) are we talking about. Given that info would help in recommendations.

Grimmy

 

[Jason_mazzy]

I prefer jobes organic

 

[yenling83]

if your a fan of Ryan Neil, it's organic, organic, organic.

If your budget can stand it and you have access, bio-gold can't be beaten.

I use a brand made locally and place it in tea bags for release with daily watering. About every 4- weeks I replace the bags.

It just makes sense to me personally, to have a little bit available every day as needed as opposed to say a big dump every week or two.

Nitrogen in fertilizer is the easiest of the components to decompose and wash out

I agree with this, and would use premade if I could find them for a good price. However, I generally make my own with a mixture of various dry fertilizers made of differnt meals-Cottenseed, fish, bone, feather, etc. I use fish emulsion & kelp fertilizer to bind everything together. And water certain trees with fish emulsion depending on what my goal is with the tree. This is a pretty inexpensive way to go if you get big bags of meal from feed stores.

 

[jacob.morgan78]

Juniper and my soil will be mostly inorganic so fertilizer will be important... lava rock, pine bark, and the napa absorbent material (diatamaceous earth)...

I'm leaning toward the organic green dream bonzai fertilizer for slow release. And also a biweekly balanced fertilizer that I haven't decided on yet that dissolves in water... sound okay?

 

[JudyB]

Hi Jacob, welcome to the forum.

I have a question, are you raising kamakazi's instead of trees? Because the sport of growing small trees is called Bonsai, and pronounced bone-sigh. And actually the cheer bonzai is spelled banzai ! It means 1000 years. And it's actually a celebratory phrase. The war cry was the emperors name and the word banzai of which the meaning was- long live the emperor, or a salute to the emperor as they were dying.

Sorry for the history lesson, on to your question.

I use a combo of green dream and bonsai pro by dyna gro, which is a liquid concentrate and has trace minerals. I use a 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of the dyna gro each time I water, and the green dream as needed per tree. I also have some humic acid concentrate that I use once a month in the growing season (another liquid) You should be careful with how much humic acid you add as it can be pretty strong. I am trying out the Portland rose society's granular fert. this year, it is actually pretty similar to and has more elements than green dream.
Hope this helps!

 

[small trees]

Rather than start another thread, might I get input from anyone browsing the thread as to how suitable this fertilizer profile looks?

 

[JudyB]

just for conversations sake

I was going thru all my old bonsai info files, and found this one on fert. Thought it was interesting and seems like sound thinking. For the life of me I don't remember who to attribute this to. I'd like to know what other folks think of the ideas in this text.


Minerals are minerals. There is NO difference between the NPK derived from fish emulsion that that derived from Miracle Grow. It's all the same to the plant, however, the levels of mineral in "organic" fertilizers is extremely low and less available in some instances compared to prepared fertilizers. It takes longer to get the same results with organics.

Just because something is "organic" doesn't make it "better, just as being "inorganic" doesn't make it bad.

The differences between the slower acting organics and faster-acting prepared ferts can both be used to develop bonsai. If you're using organics to grow a plant out for trunk diameter and initial branch development, you're barking up the wrong tree. It's not effective. If you're using prepared fertilizers to develop finer details, like tertiary branching and smaller leaves, you're also working at cross purposes.

I don't bother with the low N ferts in the fall. Wasn't worth trying to locate the stuff. Balanced Fertilizer application in the fall isn't the bugaboo that people think it is. At that time of year, plants aren't loooking to bulk up on N, but are looking for P and K. They let the N go.

A bigger threat in sparking new growth in the fall (and a much more common culprit) is hard pruning on branches. If you cut into old wood it triggers new growth. Don't hard prune in the fall is a much more effective piece of advice than "use low N fertilizer"

 

[garywood]

This article from OSU gives a pretty good overview of Nitrogen availability. It's for lawn fertilizing but covers soil nitrogen interaction.

http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/pest/docs/pdf/96_26_ec1492.pdf

 

[jacob.morgan78]

Man!!! I can't believe I misspelled that!! How embarrassing... I definitely know it's spelled with an s and don't know why I put a z there!!! geez :/

okay, i'm going to read the rest of the replies now

 

[nathanbs]

I agree with this, and would use premade if I could find them for a good price. However, I generally make my own with a mixture of various dry fertilizers made of differnt meals-Cottenseed, fish, bone, feather, etc. I use fish emulsion & kelp fertilizer to bind everything together. And water certain trees with fish emulsion depending on what my goal is with the tree. This is a pretty inexpensive way to go if you get big bags of meal from feed stores.

Im curious when you use fish emulsion and when you dont as you mentioned you use it on certain trees depending on what your goal is?