Good fertilizer for my trees?

[Guns286]

Newbie question, I know. But what would you guys reccomend as a good fertilizer for my trees. If it matters, they are all pre-Bonsai's: Hibiscus, Europen Olive, Dogwood, and White Oak. So, liquid or solid? NPK level? Something affordable.

 

[Bonsaiforlife]

Miracle grow works good

 

[Eric Schrader]

Tick tick tick tick.....Does anyone ever read the older threads on a forum? Some forums have wikis that store the best threads in prominent places.

Oh well.

Use fertilizer = good
no fertilizer = bad

type of fertilizer = not so important

 

[Vin]

There's probably as many opinions on fertilizer as there are on soil components; which has led to some robust conversations in the past. For that reason you may not get that many hits. However, you could always read the "Soil, fertilizer, and chemicals (including water and repotting)" Forum and be just as confused without all the rhetoric. If you figure it out please let us know. In the mean time liquid Miracle-Gro will work just fine.

 

[MidMichBonsai]

My trees are very happy with Green Dream, an organic fertilizer that was designed by bonsai grower and eficionado Colin Lewis. 5:7:7

 

[jk_lewis]

Buy whatever is on sale and apply according to the instructions on the container.

 

[Mash]

Nutricote 14-14-14 70 day animals leave it alone. When I use Green Dream the animals dig up my Fertilizer cups and chew them up.

 

[edprocoat]

I prefer the heavy overuse of liquid fertilizer. The plants takes what it needs and the rest gets washed out the soil, at least its there when and if it wants to use it. Miracle Grow, Peters Professional, Schwartz all give great results.

ed

 

[KennedyMarx]

I've had good results with regular old Miracle Grow Shake N Feed pellets. I've used Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro. This summer I tried out Milorganite grass fertilizer, then Plantone and Hollytone. The take away from trying different ones is that anything works, but if you want a lot of growth you need a lot of fertilizer and organic fertilizers don't burn the roots. Soil composition should be taken into account when thinking about fertilizing.

 

[Alain]

I'm very happy (an most important my trees seem very happy) with a home-depot all-purpose osmocote balanced fertilizer (14-14-14).
Grand-cost of the product: $4.98 plus taxes

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Osmocote-1-lb-Flower-and-Vegetable-Plant-Food-277160/204856073

Btw my trees are in training too

 

[Stiple]

I use a commercial cucumber oriented chemical fertilizer which is 8-16-36 at the recommended strength according to the packaging. It works great.

 

[fredman]

Foliage Pro 9-3-6

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I use either a 12-1-1 or a 9-1-1

both have a long, long list of macro and micro nutrients.

Calcium is 8, magnesium is 2, copper, boron, zinc, all on the list.

Never been happier. I do not change fertilizer with the seasons, just the concentration.

In all honesty, I usually don't answer fertilizer threads, because I get frustrated with the time it takes to explain the why behind what I do. Basically, everything you know about fertilizer is wrong.

Or to phrase it differently, all the information about fertilizer written for hobby growers is wrong. Recycled information from 1890's England research.

The information published for commercial potted plant production is correct, and basically is what I follow. Go to Michigan State University website, find the articles on research for the potted plant production trade. In particular, look at articles about fertilizing "plug" plants. That is basically what I use - Michigan State University formulation fertilizer. MSU for short.

See, haven't said more than half a sentence about why, and I am already at half a page. Look it up.

 

[Poink88]

I use either a 12-1-1 or a 9-1-1

...Go to Michigan State University website, find the articles on research for the potted plant production trade. In particular, look at articles about fertilizing "plug" plants.

Leo,

Your fertilizer is for lawn/grass. Tress have a different concentration requirement.

I use Miracle Grow all-purpose 24-8-16

 

[coh]

What was Ryan's comment in the superthrive thread? Somewhere on bonsainut, yet another can of worms is slowly being opened...

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Leo,

Your fertilizer is for lawn/grass. Tress have a different concentration requirement.

I use Miracle Grow all-purpose 24-8-16

No, the formulation is NOT for grass lawns. I don't have time now - someday in the future I will post more, right now I don't have the time. Search terms to use - MSU fertilizer formulation. Check it out.

 

[jk_lewis]

I wonder how many times this wheel has been reinvented here on BN and other bonsai forums.

I WISH people would simply read what has come before before they ask questions -- or reply to what is a VFAQ.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Sorry I was sounding exasperated yesterday, was writing an article (about bamboo), and was feeling deadline pressure. Needed to take a break, and then waded into this discussion, without re-setting my attitude to neutral. This website's FAQ STICKY thread, in the New to Bonsai forum has not been used to its full advantage. But fertilizer is a twisty subject and there is no one correct answer. Because there are no one size fits all answers to the fertilizer question, a simple post with a few lines just won't work.

One problem with bringing up the newer information around fertilizer from potted plant production trade, is that there are many, many very well grown bonsai, that were subjected to simply awful fertilizer regimes.

Trees are amazingly resilient, and will adapt and survive just about any poorly balanced, inadequate fertilizer, and grow well, if a few conditions are met. The best cure for using a fertilizer with incorrect ratios of nutrients relevant to what a tree actually needs - is a clear flush of water between fertilizer doses. So if you fertilize your trees once every 2 weeks and water them every day or every other day in between. Majority of trees will survive, because the flushes with fertilizer free water in between will allow the tree to dump excess nutrients from the poorly designed fertilizer. So people using poorly designed fertilizer programs can get excellent results. This makes is very hard to convince anyone that there is a better way. Or that a modern fertilizer program has any benefit. And I have used up my tolerance for typing today. Haven't even scratched the surface.

SO if you water with plain water several times between doses of fertilizer, just about anything can be made to work. So buy what is on sale and use it.