Type of Fertilizer

[Windy]

Being a novice with orchids, I'm at a loss regarding fertilizing. I bought two types for orchids...one for growing and one for blooming.

With standard house plants, I've found I don't need to fertilize them often. Our tap water has a lot of nutrients...it's lake water (but I let it sit to get rid of the chlorine). The last thing I want to do is overwater and over fertilize.

The packages say do this or do that and I find it confusing. Do I fertilize with each watering or every other? Do I use the blooming fertilizer when it's blooming or is it used to force the plant to bloom?

What do you do? Help!!!

[orchidbingo]

I just feed all with MSU for RO (weak solution) each time I water but one watering a month I use plain RO. I used to feed my BS and NBS plants with a low N, high P formula, but I've been told by many that it wasn't necessary. In the interest of keeping things simple and saving time and money, I now use just one type.

I don't know if this is the best way of doing things but its easy to keep track of things, and it seems to be working ok.



bingo

[Windy]

Originally Posted by orchidbingo

I just feed all with MSU for RO (weak solution) each time I water but one watering a month I use plain RO. I used to feed my BS and NBS plants with a low N, high P formula, but I've been told by many that it wasn't necessary......
bingo

Being new, what is MSU, RO, BS and NBS? I feel like such a dunce, but I have no clue what this means...sorry!!

Thanks for any further info...

[orchidbingo]

Originally Posted by Windy

Being new, what is MSU, RO, BS and NBS? I feel like such a dunce, but I have no clue what this means...sorry!!

Thanks for any further info...

No need to be sorry! It's my fault for being too lazy to type.

MSU= Michigan State University- it's their formulation of fertilizer based on studies they did showing lots of fertilizers don't have Nitrogen and Phosphorus in forms that plants can actually use. Lots of places sell it (repotme.com and firstrays.com).

RO= reverse osmosis- cleaned up water- this is how most groceries purify their water in their machines.

NBS and BS- near blooming size and blooming size plants

Hope this helps

bingo

[Windy]

Thank you sooooo much. I just printed out your post and will start looking for what you've suggested.

I did read to use distilled water and that's all I drink (have a large distiller...it's a long boring story why). I received a nice bamboo plant for Mother's Day and distilled was suggested for it, too.

Okay...off to do an internet search. Again, thanks.

[Ray]

If you use RO, distilled, deionized, collected rainwater, NYC tapwater - any source that is essentially mineral-free - you will not be able to use most fertilizers right out of the box (or bottle).

There are three sources of nitrogen commonly used in fertilizers - ammonium compounds, nitrate compounds, and urea - and they affect the pH of the solution differently.

Unless the formulation used is designed specifically for use in pure water, the fertilizer solution can be entirely too acidic for the plants. You either have to adjust the pH to the proper range (high-5's to low-6's is a good, general range), or switch fertilizer. The "MSU for RO" bingo mentioned is a formula designed with mineral-free water in mind.

[Windy]

Thanks, Ray, for letting me know. This is important info, too.