watering questions

[oscar freak]

so i'v got my orchids for a couple of months and i havent
killed them yet im very chuffed.i'v been doing lots of reading which is sometimes a bad thing because now im getting conflicting stories.as stated in a seperate thread i live in jobur south africa its the middle of winter here now and i'v got cymbidiums buds just about to open and a dendrobium with its last flower.after nearly killing the dendro with kindness iv settled down and have been watering all my plants once a week with my fish tank water which is basically aged tap water with a high ph.i have the cyms in a green house suspended over a water tray for moisture the dendro is indoors and is spritzed with the same water everytime i come across it which is usually in the evening.they all seem to be doing fine but now in my efforts to do all i can for them i bought distilled water because i read somewhere that cyms dont like their water full of salts etc but then when i read somewhere else it says not to use distilled water for dends?i also got me some liquid fertilser 49.2:33:52 5ml per 1L of water was thinking to half the measure and use as my weekly water/feed and in my spritzer bottle.is this ok or should i stick to the bottles instructions of twice a month?

[Ray]

I have never seen a fertilizer that strong, but 5 ml/L will likely damage the roots, as that's 650 ppm N! As a point of reference, I feed two-, or three times a week, and my fertilizer is at about 30 ppm N. If I fed once a week, or less frequently, I'd use no more than 1 ml/L, as that would still be about 130 ppm N.


Ray Barkalow
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[orchidsarefun]

I grew my cyms outdoors in Glendower/Edenvale, I think you can too if you have a sheltered position. BTW - I used tap water to water them and only fertilised ( weakly ) every 4 months! I had magnificent blooms and they got me interested in other orchids.

[oscar freak]

nice to find a fellow safa here .thanks for the info the fertilizer is a woolworths brand liquid fertilizer just as well i put it up here or i might have burned my poor plants,will weaken the dosage accordingly thanks.the plants are in less than ideal pots and medium at the moment so arent ready for showing off in the house yet so iv got the 2 in flower in the greenhouse and the one not in flower is in the garden under my flowering cherry and has survived temps as low as -4 degrees celcius and seems to be sprouting new growth even.so just wanna know do i need to bother with this distilled water?is it good for some and not others?i'v read of using it to flush out salt build up in the potting mediums.