Questions about Overwintering tropicals...

[SU2]

This is where you get to shame me for poor record keeping:

Most of my plants were in nursery pots: 4"-2 gallons. I only used MG for part of the summer, and I threw away the empty container so I can't remember what the NPKs on the version I was using were. The rest of the summer I was using JR Peter's 20-20-20. Recommended rate: 1 tablespoon/gallon every 7-14 days. I was adding at least 1.5 tablespoons/gallon every 7 days (sometimes 2 tablespoons).

View attachment 175827

Some weeks I would use this Schultz for Acid loving plants (30-10-10) stuff. 1 teaspoon (as opposed to the 0.5 teaspoons recommended):
View attachment 175828View attachment 175829

The plants that got this treatment were in one of: nursery soil, 1:1 oildri/perlite, or 1:1:1 grit/oildri/pine bark.

.

The way that you talk about "24N" makes me wonder what units you think you're working with.

24N=24% nitrogen by weight, which is the rate that Miracle-Gro's signature / all-purpose product comes in (24-8-16), my goal is to find out what the **optimal** weekly nitrogen dosage is for bougies (and crapes and others, would be satisfied to just find out re bougies though lol), the label recommends 1TBSP/gal of the 24-8-16 every 1-2 weeks, so if walter pall is saying he uses 20-60x the label or whatever rate he says, *that's* where I get confused and say "20-60x what label?", because 20-60X something is a multiplier only, "the label" isn't a constant it's a variable that, w/o knowing it, makes the 20-60x multiplier useless.

I'm currently aiming for around 1.5TBSP/gal of MG, twice weekly - that would be 3tbsp/gal in a week, or double their recommendation (double the middle-ground, since they give a recommended range not a hard #) Am also doing ~1tsp/gal epsom salts (10% Magnesium, 13% sulfur, just an awesome product!) twice weekly, and have applied a granular/time-release organic 3-4-4 (at probably 75% recommended rate) to the surface so that there's always *something* available

Honestly I'm very surprised that Epsom Salts aren't WAY more popular, I mean they seem the *perfect* adjunct to formulas like the standard Miracle Gro or your JR Peter's, both products have plenty macronutrients (N-P-K) but terrible micronutrients (I mean, *zero* magnesium in either product? Seriously?....), especially for acid-loving plants Epsom just seems like it should be a part of wayyy more people's fertilizer regimens than I ever see mentioned :/

 

[SU2]

@sparklemotion (great username, just caught what it was lol ), this is a perfect example of what I mean:

Rest of year is container recommended "houseplant" strength fertilizer once/week except for few plants wanting to give extra boost 2 times/week. Use only H2O soluble fertilizer. Why attract flies/bad smells with crap on soil? Also on matter of extra fertilizer use at least 2 problems arise: Wasting fertilizer and extra unused fertilizer washing out into environment causing problems in native waterways,etc. For example see Mississippi delta dead zone caused by nitrogen from farms/lawn overfertilizing. Even personal small amounts all add to this problem.

You're saying to use 'recommended', you mention boosting for some plants, but those are meaningless values w/o quantifying what your fertilizer's got in it, how potent/concentrated it is, I've got stuff that's 3-4-4 and stuff that's 24-8-16, if I just "use what the container recommends" but we don't talk about what container you mean then it's futile, it's about the #'s not about how in-line we are to the manufacturer's reco's!

And on the note of bad smell / attracting flies, I used to feel that way but have since started top-dressing containers (or mixing-into substrate if potting something) with a granular, time-release organic - I hate the smell & bugs but it's worth it for the higher-quality fertilizer, I did a few A/B tests when I first got the stuff and it clearly made a difference (I should note it's got innoculants/microbials so it increases the biota in my otherwise-inert substrates - people talk-down about compost-tea and such things, I'm of the mindset that innoculants aren't of much use to established plants, but that their use in freshly-setup containers or with plants that are just starting to fill-out their containers is certainly worthwhile because the symbiotic relationships that roots have w/ these microbiota greatly expands root surface-area. Your soil will eventually get its own ecosystem going (even though you started w/ inert ingredients like perlite/lava/pumice/akadama/etc) but having it going sooner is better (I cannot help but think of how analogous this is to 'seeding' a new fish tank with rocks ('live rocks' we'd call them in the marine hobbyist world) taken from an established tank, doing so dramatically reduces the time it takes to have an established & stable/balanced ecosystem in a tank that started 'sterile'/inert and there's no reason to think the principle is any different when it comes to planting trees into inert substrates!)

And IMO your concerns about too-much are unwarranted, firstly the price of wasted fertilizer is so low it's almost irrelevant (can't recall MG prices off the top of my head but it's something like a buck or two a pound), and insofar as your concerns re run-off, those are concerns to be aimed at industrial-scale agricultural setups, not joe schmoe watering his bonsai trees! I've got grasses/ground-covers under my benches, some specimen landscape plants alongside my benches, they all grow like they're on steroids so really I'm re-using my run-off fertilizer already, I don't waste time/fertilizer doing separate applications to these plants because I know they're covered by my run-off Actually have a papaya that's grown like nothing I've ever seen (and I've grown a lot of papaya!), it's situated in the best spot possible relative to my benches for run-off and it grows like nothing I've seen!!

 

[GrimLore]

@GrimLore I updated my avatar w/ location.

Sorry, I just noticed I did not follow up... I have read through this whole thread though and noticed two things;

1) The intensity and detail of fertilization is way to complex and can be achieved simply with minimal smell, cost, or worry.
2) Humidity and light are discussed but I see no useable information provided.

I have an entire room of tropicals here up North since moving to this place in 2013 and it is tight, regulated, and works so I have something to balance my statements to your situation and plants... Not arrogance but experience.

1) The fertilization can be accomplished in an orderly fashion using Jack's 20-20-20 with nutrients, cut in half, monthly... I don't see for any reason you need anything else unless you introduce other plants that "might" need special treatment.
2) Your area gets plenty of light and could need toned down in the hottest months "if" everything stays in. The BRT's will tolerate the most sun, the other plants not so much as they are under canopy varieties and should not get more then a couple of hours direct sun during the summer, especially in your location.
If you put a humidity meter, even a cheap one, on the inside of a couple of plants not exposed to the sun and monitor it ONCE a day, let's say 1PM I can guess with those getting watered it should read 40 - 45 percent pretty consistent - don't be anal - they can take a slight drop or increase of 5 percent easy. Nothing needs more except for certain plants that you are controlling for a special purpose which need another location. Thinking more is better results in fungal and insect infestations so in my room I can control those but in open area avoid them - trust me here.

Don't make it or think it must be complicated - complicated KILLS plants

Grimmy

 

[sparklemotion]

@sparklemotion (great username, just caught what it was lol ), this is a perfect example of what I mean: ...
I've got stuff that's 3-4-4 and stuff that's 24-8-16, if I just "use what the container recommends" but we don't talk about what container you mean then it's futile, it's about the #'s not about how in-line we are to the manufacturer's reco's!

I definitely don't don't your commitment I started doing a bunch of math on this a few weeks back and it hurt my head* so I let it drop. Now you've put the bee back in my bonnet and we all get to suffer.

Let's start off by saying that it doesn't really make any sense to compare a 3-4-4 to a 24-8-16, because the ratios are so different even if you equalize "nitrogen" you're skewing the other two. I didn't really come to this realization until I did all the math below so... here are some numbers.

24-8-16 is 24% nitrogen by weight, right?
3-4-4 is 3% nitrogen by weight.

The bulk density of Miracle Gro Water Soluble All-purpose 24-8-16 is 45-50 lbs/cu. ft. Source.

The "label" rate is 1 tablespoon/gallon every 7-14 days (gonna call it 10).

Let's convert to metric for my own sanity:
1 tablespoon = 15ml
50lbs/cu. ft. = 22679.6 g/28316.8 ml = 0.8 g/ml

So 15ml of Miracle-gro gets you 12g of "nitrogen"

So the "label rate" for Miracle-gro is 12g/nitrogen per gallon (yes, mixing measurement systems).
3-4 times that means 36-48g of nitrogen per gallon per application (every 10 days).

Now, with Garden-tone 3-4-4 it's a little more complicated because it's a slow release AND granular. Let's deal with the granular for for first....

Density: 1 lb = 3 cups (https://www.espoma.com/product/garden-tone/).
For new plants, they recommend: When preparing soil for new plants, thoroughly mix 2 cups of Garden-tone into each cubic foot of Potting Soil.
So, 2.3333 lb per cu. ft. of soil.

Now, some handwaving... how do you go from grams/gallon of water to grams/cu. ft. of soil? To start with, you need to know how much water you're actually putting into a given pot. Lots of factors here: what's the substrate? How is watering done (misting/soaking/pouring)? It would probably just be best to measure, but let's try to theorize: I'm choosing to go with Appalachian Bonsai's water retention numbers, and assuming a 1:1:1 akadama/pumice/lava BY WEIGHT mix. That lets me average the % water loss of the mix, and subtract from one to say how much water might be retained after watering. Giving me about 36% water retention.

This is a big leap: But let's say 1 gallon of soil takes 1 gallon of water to be saturated, but only 36% of that stays. So pouring 1 gallon of 3-4x MG water will leave about 13-17g of nitrogen in the pot (this completely ignores CEC). So -- 3-4x MG means 13-17g of nitrogen per gallon of soil every 10 days. In between, the remaining nitrogen should be getting flushed by straight watering.

Back to Garden Tone.
1 cu ft = 7.4 gallons, assuming you're applying at the 2.3333lb per cu. ft. rate gives us 0.31 lbs/gallon.

0.31lbs = 140 grams.
3% "nitrogen" means about 4.2g nitrogen per gallon of soil per application.
So, 3-4x Garden Tone gets you 12.6-16.8g nitrogen per gallon of soil per application. Garden tone recommends monthly applications. Some more hand-waving lets us assume that 1/3rd of the nitrogen is released every 10 days. So, 4.2-5.6g of nitrogen per gallon of soil every 10 days. But it probably sticks around longer b/c it's not getting flushed.


Summary:
This is all a roundabout way of saying that the manufacturers recommendations take the "strength" of the fertilizer into account. Given the various assumptions above, a low nitrogen fertilizer will give you about 5g of nitrogen per gallon of soil, and a high nitrogen fertilizer will give you about 15g of nitrogen per gallon of soil every 10 days if applied at 3-4 times the manufacturer's rate. Even with all the fat thumbing and hand waving above, that seems like a reasonable deviation.

There's no way that you'll be able to control (or even measure) the exact amount of N, P, or K taken up by a given tree. If you could, then *maybe* Walter's methods aren't specific enough. As it is... I think it's worth looking into stuff like trace minerals that might be absent in one fertilizer or another (it doesn't matter how much Miracle-Gro I put on my citrus trees, it won't solve a magnesium deficiency, for example). Or, say, if your plant was showing signs of phosphorus deficiency, you'd want to be careful about adding 3-4x a 10-30-20 fertilizer on top of your 3-4x 24-8-16, simply because you'd be adding too many salts to the soil.

*not in a math is hard way-- I'm an engineer dammit. We're just lacking some essential data here.

 

[just.wing.it]

Jack's 20-20-20 for life!

 

[Walter Pall]

I am being quoted here as writing " I feed 20-60x of what the label says" or similar nonsense. The truth is that I frequently claim to feed about 20 to 60 times in a year!! of what most folks feed. Most feed nothing to way too little and thus it is easy to feed 20 times more.

 

[SU2]

I am being quoted here as writing " I feed 20-60x of what the label says" or similar nonsense. The truth is that I frequently claim to feed about 20 to 60 times in a year!! of what most folks feed. Most feed nothing to way too little and thus it is easy to feed 20 times more.

Apologies for what you considered nonsense, I was having trouble finding the video (you're sitting in a chair casually explaining the concepts of your watering/feeding/substrate article), but whether it's 20-60x in a year, or 20-60x what the label says, in either case the 20-60x is a multiplier without a constant, if your fertilizer is 1-1-1 and mine's 20-20-20 then I'd get in trouble emulating your approach (and trying to emulate everything from that article has been a central pillar of how I approach bonsai, cannot thank you enough for your contributions in fact I linked that article to a newbie on Reddit this morning!)

I'm currently using Miracle Gro 24-8-16, and am trying to establish a proper "weekly dose" so that I can then divide it into halves (as I fertilize every third day), the schedule I just started yesterday was to fertilize every third day using 1TBSP/gal of 24-8-16 and for the life of me I can't tell if you'd be using ~around that much or 10x as much, and if it's the latter then I'd *really* want to know because most of my collection is stock/pre-bonsai (and heavy feeders) so want to maximize nitrogen uptake but am still just unable to determine how to compare my rate to yours, apples-to-apples. Could you tell me what the NPK value of your fert is, and how much / often you apply it? Would be eternally grateful to know precisely what Walter Pall feeds his trees, have been trying to model so much of my approach after yours but just cannot peg-down #'s for fertilizers! My substrates are as inert/free-draining as can be, sure it goes w/o saying but know you make sure to stress that such high fertilization must be in the proper context

[I should add that I also fertilize with epsom salts (10% magnesium/13% sulfur), I do a 3-day schedule: fertilizer day, plain water day, epsom day - then start over w/ fertilizer (so really am doing a little over 2 applications a week since I apply every third day)]

 

[SU2]

I definitely don't don't your commitment I started doing a bunch of math on this a few weeks back and it hurt my head* so I let it drop. Now you've put the bee back in my bonnet and we all get to suffer.

Let's start off by saying that it doesn't really make any sense to compare a 3-4-4 to a 24-8-16, because the ratios are so different even if you equalize "nitrogen" you're skewing the other two. I didn't really come to this realization until I did all the math below so... here are some numbers.

24-8-16 is 24% nitrogen by weight, right?
3-4-4 is 3% nitrogen by weight.

The bulk density of Miracle Gro Water Soluble All-purpose 24-8-16 is 45-50 lbs/cu. ft. Source.

The "label" rate is 1 tablespoon/gallon every 7-14 days (gonna call it 10).

Let's convert to metric for my own sanity:
1 tablespoon = 15ml
50lbs/cu. ft. = 22679.6 g/28316.8 ml = 0.8 g/ml

So 15ml of Miracle-gro gets you 12g of "nitrogen"

So the "label rate" for Miracle-gro is 12g/nitrogen per gallon (yes, mixing measurement systems).
3-4 times that means 36-48g of nitrogen per gallon per application (every 10 days).

Now, with Garden-tone 3-4-4 it's a little more complicated because it's a slow release AND granular. Let's deal with the granular for for first....

Density: 1 lb = 3 cups (https://www.espoma.com/product/garden-tone/).
For new plants, they recommend: When preparing soil for new plants, thoroughly mix 2 cups of Garden-tone into each cubic foot of Potting Soil.
So, 2.3333 lb per cu. ft. of soil.

Now, some handwaving... how do you go from grams/gallon of water to grams/cu. ft. of soil? To start with, you need to know how much water you're actually putting into a given pot. Lots of factors here: what's the substrate? How is watering done (misting/soaking/pouring)? It would probably just be best to measure, but let's try to theorize: I'm choosing to go with Appalachian Bonsai's water retention numbers, and assuming a 1:1:1 akadama/pumice/lava BY WEIGHT mix. That lets me average the % water loss of the mix, and subtract from one to say how much water might be retained after watering. Giving me about 36% water retention.

This is a big leap: But let's say 1 gallon of soil takes 1 gallon of water to be saturated, but only 36% of that stays. So pouring 1 gallon of 3-4x MG water will leave about 13-17g of nitrogen in the pot (this completely ignores CEC). So -- 3-4x MG means 13-17g of nitrogen per gallon of soil every 10 days. In between, the remaining nitrogen should be getting flushed by straight watering.

Back to Garden Tone.
1 cu ft = 7.4 gallons, assuming you're applying at the 2.3333lb per cu. ft. rate gives us 0.31 lbs/gallon.

0.31lbs = 140 grams.
3% "nitrogen" means about 4.2g nitrogen per gallon of soil per application.
So, 3-4x Garden Tone gets you 12.6-16.8g nitrogen per gallon of soil per application. Garden tone recommends monthly applications. Some more hand-waving lets us assume that 1/3rd of the nitrogen is released every 10 days. So, 4.2-5.6g of nitrogen per gallon of soil every 10 days. But it probably sticks around longer b/c it's not getting flushed.


Summary:
This is all a roundabout way of saying that the manufacturers recommendations take the "strength" of the fertilizer into account. Given the various assumptions above, a low nitrogen fertilizer will give you about 5g of nitrogen per gallon of soil, and a high nitrogen fertilizer will give you about 15g of nitrogen per gallon of soil every 10 days if applied at 3-4 times the manufacturer's rate. Even with all the fat thumbing and hand waving above, that seems like a reasonable deviation.

There's no way that you'll be able to control (or even measure) the exact amount of N, P, or K taken up by a given tree. If you could, then *maybe* Walter's methods aren't specific enough. As it is... I think it's worth looking into stuff like trace minerals that might be absent in one fertilizer or another (it doesn't matter how much Miracle-Gro I put on my citrus trees, it won't solve a magnesium deficiency, for example). Or, say, if your plant was showing signs of phosphorus deficiency, you'd want to be careful about adding 3-4x a 10-30-20 fertilizer on top of your 3-4x 24-8-16, simply because you'd be adding too many salts to the soil.

*not in a math is hard way-- I'm an engineer dammit. We're just lacking some essential data here.

Awesome reply you really got the calculator out there ;D (and am with you on the units, drives me nuts that we can't all just be on metric!!!)

That was an insightful way to look at it (and thanks for that link, I liked that side-by-side substrate comparison, gotta say I was kinda smiling when I saw my go-to "moisture-retention substrate", DE, was ranked higher than akadama ;D ), however in the end we've got a situation where espoma's recommendation is a fraction of Miracle Gro/MG's recommendation, so we're still in the "no fixed/constant #" to base these multipliers off of! Put another way, if all you're doing is applying "at a multiple of whatever my particular label says", then you're going to have different results depending what fertilizer you happened to have bought- that's not a way to determine #'s, it's backwards, you should know a rough range for ideal NPK values, then (and only then) you can figure out what multiplier your specific product would need to get you to your ideal NPK #'s! I know that uptake by the tree, losses from plain-water waterings, substrate, etc all affect this as well, but that still leaves me wanting hard #'s - am tempted to email Erik Wigert to see if he'd share what he applies because I fully expect he's found & uses the maximum amount, I want to do the same but I don't want to be so clumsy with my #'s that I'm putting 3x as much fert down as needed yknow? (and I'm very clueless on 'salt buildup', I mean I fully understand the principles behind it but what I've never seen is hard #'s or even generalizations, people always just refer to 'salt buildup' but never discuss it in any further depth, if I'm understanding W.Pall's sentiment properly though then build-up is largely a non-issue, as frequent heavy waterings of inorganic, large-particle substrate effectively washes-out any of this 'salt buildup' which again I'd love to learn more about ie how does one know there's build-up, what are the effects (pH and some hygroscopic water-pulling if, for some reason, you let it get wayyy too-dry in your substrate?), etc)

And I couldn't agree w/ you more re trace minerals, I'm truly/literally clueless as to why most commercial fertilizers have low, and often *no*, magnesium- the stuff seems to be one of the most-commonly deficient minerals/micro's, it's incredibly integral to a plant's growth, and one of its principle roles is working hand-in-hand w/ nitrogen - I really cannot come-up with a valid reason that it's not in most-all general fertilizers at least at some level, I mean MG's 24-8-16 has *no* Mg+?!? I use epsom salts (10%Mg+/13% Sulfur) alongside my MG 24-8-16 but still just cannot figure out why MG doesn't include magnesium in their general formula!!

At the end of the day I think that, absent any hard#'s to go by, I'm just going to keep upping it until I have problems - I've got a couple "canary in the coal mine" plants that I'm giving extra fertilizer to so that, as I slowly titrate upwards, I'll see problems in the two crappy testers/canaries and know that I'm nearing optimum levels!!

 

[just.wing.it]

and I'm very clueless on 'salt buildup', I mean I fully understand the principles behind it but what I've never seen is hard #'s or even generalizations, people always just refer to 'salt buildup' but never discuss it in any further depth, if I'm understanding W.Pall's sentiment properly though then build-up is largely a non-issue, as frequent heavy waterings of inorganic, large-particle substrate effectively washes-out any of this 'salt buildup'

Bingo!
That's my take on that...
I think the salt build up happens with organic fertilizer, like chicken poo...
If your using a water soluble chemical fertilizer, you'll likely not have that problem....
I don't...
I use a strong dose of 20-20-20 weekly during the growing season, and I change it up with Fish Emulsion everyone other week or so...
And I also switch in some Miracle Gro for Acid Loving plants on most of my stuff, now and again...

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I am being quoted here as writing " I feed 20-60x of what the label says" or similar nonsense. The truth is that I frequently claim to feed about 20 to 60 times in a year!! of what most folks feed. Most feed nothing to way too little and thus it is easy to feed 20 times more.

Ha, I've seen that commentary quoted more than a few times and may have mis-interpreted your original content myself. Thank you for the clarification.

 

[SU2]

Bingo!
That's my take on that...
I think the salt build up happens with organic fertilizer, like chicken poo...
If your using a water soluble chemical fertilizer, you'll likely not have that problem....
I don't...
I use a strong dose of 20-20-20 weekly during the growing season, and I change it up with Fish Emulsion everyone other week or so...
And I also switch in some Miracle Gro for Acid Loving plants on most of my stuff, now and again...

I didn't know chicken poo was salty, the way I always hear it is that chemical/synthetic sources of NPK tend towards salt-based chemicals but again I don't think there can be much 'build up' concerns if using 'modern bonsai soil' (which I've recently been told I shouldn't be using, that it's more for trees in refinement and not trees like mine ie trees that are in early development / are still setting 2nd-level branches...god things can be confusing!)

By 'miracle gro for acid loving', are you referring to their Azalea formula (that used to have 'acid' in the product name)? Or do you mean they're inherently acidic? Am still having trouble discerning just how big an effect on pH there is between the various forms of synthetic nitrogen (urea/ammoniacal/etc) in various instant-release fertilizers... Am gathering that you mean you do a 20-20-20 (at 1tbsp/gal) once a week during growing season - that'd be considered kind of low-level fertilization right? 20% nitro once weekly? My MG 24-8-16 says I can use 1tbsp/gal weekly (they say 'every 1-2wks'), but they're talking about soil that's going to hold/retain it - I don't think it'd be unreasonable to say that, in some of my really crappy blends (say, almost pure perlite), the retention of the fertilizer is half, a third, maybe less, than that of a proper potting soil / good dirt. So if retention is 1/4th in perlite versus dirt, you'd use 4x as much (to get an identical amount to the roots), if I'm not missing something! (obviously there's other considerations but that'd be the gist of it --- if MG says 24-8-16 every 7d is OK for soil, I know that for really loose perlite&lava mixes that I need much more but I'm just guessing if I'm saying 2x, 4x, etc....so I'm really trying to press a couple of the known names in this for hard #'s of what they use (have also tried cannabis forums, but it ends up being a TDS/total dissolved solids/hydroponics discussion that I just can't translate to 'tbsp/gal/week' lol!)

Ha, I've seen that commentary quoted more than a few times and may have mis-interpreted your original content myself. Thank you for the clarification.

Whether he means 20-60x the label, or 20-60x what most people use (which, incidentally, is probably close-enough to what the label recommends), it really does nothing to clear-up how much nitrogen he's actually putting down. If Miracle Gro's 24-8-16 was the only thing available, I'm curious if he means he's using 1tbsp/gal a couple times a week, or 3tbsp/gal every other day - it sounds like he's saying something closer to the latter but hopefully he'll pop back in and clarify/specify what he uses! I know he just gets basic ferts but I'm talking about how much of what #'s are applied how often!!

 

[just.wing.it]

I didn't know chicken poo was salty, the way I always hear it is that chemical/synthetic sources of NPK tend towards salt-based chemicals but again I don't think there can be much 'build up' concerns if using 'modern bonsai soil' (which I've recently been told I shouldn't be using, that it's more for trees in refinement and not trees like mine ie trees that are in early development / are still setting 2nd-level branches...god things can be confusing!)

By 'miracle gro for acid loving', are you referring to their Azalea formula (that used to have 'acid' in the product name)? Or do you mean they're inherently acidic? Am still having trouble discerning just how big an effect on pH there is between the various forms of synthetic nitrogen (urea/ammoniacal/etc) in various instant-release fertilizers... Am gathering that you mean you do a 20-20-20 (at 1tbsp/gal) once a week during growing season - that'd be considered kind of low-level fertilization right? 20% nitro once weekly? My MG 24-8-16 says I can use 1tbsp/gal weekly (they say 'every 1-2wks'), but they're talking about soil that's going to hold/retain it - I don't think it'd be unreasonable to say that, in some of my really crappy blends (say, almost pure perlite), the retention of the fertilizer is half, a third, maybe less, than that of a proper potting soil / good dirt. So if retention is 1/4th in perlite versus dirt, you'd use 4x as much (to get an identical amount to the roots), if I'm not missing something! (obviously there's other considerations but that'd be the gist of it --- if MG says 24-8-16 every 7d is OK for soil, I know that for really loose perlite&lava mixes that I need much more but I'm just guessing if I'm saying 2x, 4x, etc....so I'm really trying to press a couple of the known names in this for hard #'s of what they use (have also tried cannabis forums, but it ends up being a TDS/total dissolved solids/hydroponics discussion that I just can't translate to 'tbsp/gal/week' lol!)




Whether he means 20-60x the label, or 20-60x what most people use (which, incidentally, is probably close-enough to what the label recommends), it really does nothing to clear-up how much nitrogen he's actually putting down. If Miracle Gro's 24-8-16 was the only thing available, I'm curious if he means he's using 1tbsp/gal a couple times a week, or 3tbsp/gal every other day - it sounds like he's saying something closer to the latter but hopefully he'll pop back in and clarify/specify what he uses! I know he just gets basic ferts but I'm talking about how much of what #'s are applied how often!!

Yes, the azalea stuff....
And yes, you're absolutely right, I'm using a soil mix that is totally inorganic, and water flies out of the drainage holes as fast as I can put it in...
Thanks for pointing that out!

 

[SU2]

Yes, the azalea stuff....

Do you know why it's considered as an 'acid lover's' fertilizer? Honestly I cannot figure it out, the only thing that'd make me think 'acidic' is the fact that it's got a high nitro level (though nitro doesn't seem to have *that* substantial an effect), I guess I was just expecting to see a reasonable dose of Sulfur in it which is surprisingly absent (another example where I'm just left dumbfounded by the choices made in these formulations ie is there a legitimate horticultural reason that an acid-fertilizer should be absent of any sulfur? Sulfur is a chemical I'm surprised isn't used in higher doses in most commercial formulas that try to be 'completes' but especially for acid-loving ferts you'd think there'd be sulfur!)

And yes, you're absolutely right, I'm using a soil mix that is totally inorganic, and water flies out of the drainage holes as fast as I can put it in...
Thanks for pointing that out!

NP, just want to be on the same page That's the same as mine, water falls right through my regular substrate mixes, I think in lots of my containers that the drainage-holes are the limiting-factor in drainage, it's not that I have insufficient drainage holes, quite the opposite, it's just that most of my mixes are so 'light' that water just falls right through, so anything short of 50% drainage-by-surface-area would have my drainage as the choke point! Am starting to make mixes that are more retentive, both by using a higher DE//perlite ratio (those two make up the majority of most of my substrate-mixes) and by including sphagnum (tan, long-strand sphagnum that's diced a little then thoroughly rinsed!) and/or bark mulch....am hoping to get some coconut coir soon to start using as well

 

[just.wing.it]

Do you know why it's considered as an 'acid lover's' fertilizer? Honestly I cannot figure it out, the only thing that'd make me think 'acidic' is the fact that it's got a high nitro level (though nitro doesn't seem to have *that* substantial an effect), I guess I was just expecting to see a reasonable dose of Sulfur in it which is surprisingly absent (another example where I'm just left dumbfounded by the choices made in these formulations ie is there a legitimate horticultural reason that an acid-fertilizer should be absent of any sulfur? Sulfur is a chemical I'm surprised isn't used in higher doses in most commercial formulas that try to be 'completes' but especially for acid-loving ferts you'd think there'd be sulfur!)


NP, just want to be on the same page That's the same as mine, water falls right through my regular substrate mixes, I think in lots of my containers that the drainage-holes are the limiting-factor in drainage, it's not that I have insufficient drainage holes, quite the opposite, it's just that most of my mixes are so 'light' that water just falls right through, so anything short of 50% drainage-by-surface-area would have my drainage as the choke point! Am starting to make mixes that are more retentive, both by using a higher DE//perlite ratio (those two make up the majority of most of my substrate-mixes) and by including sphagnum (tan, long-strand sphagnum that's diced a little then thoroughly rinsed!) and/or bark mulch....am hoping to get some coconut coir soon to start using as well

I'll have to check the ingredients of the acidic additives in that stuff....dunno off hand...

I'm using a new mix this year, so far I really like it...
Equal parts Pumice, Lava and Haydite.
Some of them have a top layer of Turface for extra moisture retention...
I still need to get more sphagnum to top dress the others...

 

[SU2]

I'll have to check the ingredients of the acidic additives in that stuff....dunno off hand...

I'm using a new mix this year, so far I really like it...
Equal parts Pumice, Lava and Haydite.
Some of them have a top layer of Turface for extra moisture retention...
I still need to get more sphagnum to top dress the others...

Let me know if you find something besides just 'high nitrogen = acidic' because it looks that way to me (was only able to find an old Miracid label online, MG's website no longer has the option to see a .pdf of the label :/ )

Sounds like a good mix- would love to hear how you consider pumice in regards to lava? I've never used pumice but use lava extensively, I consider lava & perlite as my 'airy' particles and DE/sphagnum/bark as water-retentive particles, and I've top-dressed w/ sphagnum but I always ended-up pinning down the sphagnum down w/ rocks - usually lava rocks - which led to me just top-dressing some of my containers w/ larger pieces of lava, it wasn't really thought-out but the lava rock as a top-dressing lets me get a great 'visual moisture-level gauging', I'll have half-submerged chunks of lava rock whose color lets me know moisture levels w/ much greater precision than just rubbing some substrate between my fingers!

Sphagnum is acidic and my trees are mostly 'acid loving' but w/o being able to test pH I worry about using too-much of the stuff (am already doing high nitro fertilizing alongside epsom salts which are 13% sulfur)

 

[just.wing.it]

Let me know if you find something besides just 'high nitrogen = acidic' because it looks that way to me (was only able to find an old Miracid label online, MG's website no longer has the option to see a .pdf of the label :/ )

Sounds like a good mix- would love to hear how you consider pumice in regards to lava? I've never used pumice but use lava extensively, I consider lava & perlite as my 'airy' particles and DE/sphagnum/bark as water-retentive particles, and I've top-dressed w/ sphagnum but I always ended-up pinning down the sphagnum down w/ rocks - usually lava rocks - which led to me just top-dressing some of my containers w/ larger pieces of lava, it wasn't really thought-out but the lava rock as a top-dressing lets me get a great 'visual moisture-level gauging', I'll have half-submerged chunks of lava rock whose color lets me know moisture levels w/ much greater precision than just rubbing some substrate between my fingers!

Sphagnum is acidic and my trees are mostly 'acid loving' but w/o being able to test pH I worry about using too-much of the stuff (am already doing high nitro fertilizing alongside epsom salts which are 13% sulfur)

Between the Pumice and Lava, I can see that the Pumice will float if it's loose, similar to Perlite.
The Haydite is very much like DE, but larger particle size than the Napa 8822.
All together, I love how heavy the pots are after watering, seems like the trees will like it too...
And of course my biggest concern is long days at work in the summer... So we'll see how it goes...
I'm also going totally ruthless on all my tree's roots this year, no more wasting time on poor Nebari...going in deep and they'll either respond as intended or die, which will make room for a tree with better Nebari.

 

[sparklemotion]

Fertilizers for "acid lovers" include chelated iron.

Plants that want a low ph have trouble absorbing iron from the soil in high ph environments. The chelation process puts the iron into the soil in a form that the plants have an easier time extracting.

 

[SU2]

Between the Pumice and Lava, I can see that the Pumice will float if it's loose, similar to Perlite.
The Haydite is very much like DE, but larger particle size than the Napa 8822.
All together, I love how heavy the pots are after watering, seems like the trees will like it too...

Yeah with it floating I'm guessing it's got higher 'air filled porosity' than lava rock, unfortunately I can't get pumice at ~$3 for a large sack! Re Haydite, where do you get yours? I use the Napa8822 because it's what I know, I mix it together w/ perlite to be the majority of my mixes, then lava rock chunks then some bark/sphagnum sometimes, often it's just the DE/perlite/lava (have recently found that Vigoro's perlite, at least their ~$17 large sacks, have very-significantly larger particles than the $4-5 bags of Miracle Gro perlite I'd been using, was so impressed w/ the Vigoro product and would just LOVE to find some DE-replacement that was better in this way! 8822 just has so many finer particles than I'd like, I mean I sift it and then very-thoroughly rinse it, til the water's running clear, but I just don't have the right screens to get rid of the smaller-range of particles in the DE so can only 'scoop from the top' of a rinsed-DE bucket ie where the larger particles are, the smaller ones at the bottom get put aside for small/shallow containers for small trees or for use in propagating stuff)

And of course my biggest concern is long days at work in the summer... So we'll see how it goes...

Yeah I know the feeling, down here it's already hot and I've made at least 5 calls home to have someone go outside and hose-down my benches (never thought of that benefit until recently but now that I've got my yard ringed w/ a 'fence' of bonsai benches it's incredibly easy for someone to simply hose the entirety of it in a couple minutes!)

I'm also going totally ruthless on all my tree's roots this year, no more wasting time on poor Nebari...going in deep and they'll either respond as intended or die, which will make room for a tree with better Nebari.

Why are you intending such a drastic root-pruning? Love the attitude though, that's kind of how I feel about some specimen - if it doesn't make it then it'll just get replaced w/ something better as I get better! Am at ~60 trees and definitely not looking to have many more than I do now, once I've finished swapping-out all the generic-plastic containers for the DIY mortar pots I make I can see what my benches fit, from there I'm not going to build more benches am simply going to improve what's on them (whether developing what I have or replacing my worst specimen as I get better ones!)

 

[just.wing.it]

Yeah with it floating I'm guessing it's got higher 'air filled porosity' than lava rock, unfortunately I can't get pumice at ~$3 for a large sack! Re Haydite, where do you get yours? I use the Napa8822 because it's what I know, I mix it together w/ perlite to be the majority of my mixes, then lava rock chunks then some bark/sphagnum sometimes, often it's just the DE/perlite/lava (have recently found that Vigoro's perlite, at least their ~$17 large sacks, have very-significantly larger particles than the $4-5 bags of Miracle Gro perlite I'd been using, was so impressed w/ the Vigoro product and would just LOVE to find some DE-replacement that was better in this way! 8822 just has so many finer particles than I'd like, I mean I sift it and then very-thoroughly rinse it, til the water's running clear, but I just don't have the right screens to get rid of the smaller-range of particles in the DE so can only 'scoop from the top' of a rinsed-DE bucket ie where the larger particles are, the smaller ones at the bottom get put aside for small/shallow containers for small trees or for use in propagating stuff)

This year, I got all my soil ingredients from Bonsai Jack, online.
Surely not the cheapest option.
But good quality of everything.
Almost no fines to speak of...I sift out more particles that are too large than too small.
I'm happy with it.

 

[SU2]

Fertilizers for "acid lovers" include chelated iron.

Plants that want a low ph have trouble absorbing iron from the soil in high ph environments. The chelation process puts the iron into the soil in a form that the plants have an easier time extracting.

Just to be sure I'm on the same page as you here because I think you're replying to my 'why is it for acid-lovers?' line, are you saying that acid-lover ferts don't really do anything for pH, rather they include easy-to-absorb iron because acid-loving plants are commonly in sub-optimal pH therefore commonly deficient in iron? (in the same vein, could we say that chelated iron itself, as a solo product, could be considered 'for acid lovers'?)

And if you happen to know, I'd be very interested in how chelated minerals absorb relative to salts / oxides / etc, like is a chelated mineral able to just passively enter a root-hair or something?

Am pretty sure my garden needs to be acidified, I have almost entirely bougies and my tap-water is 7.98pH, and in the small # of bougies that I (stupidly) put in pure-perlite, that got significantly more plain tap-water than the rest, all became chloritic and, upon trying to treat it w/ an iron formula, I got zero results (which got me thinking that it must've been magnesium because, well, the iron supplement didn't make any difference- I didn't know about pH / nutrient lock-out yet!)