choosing fertilizers - fir bark treatment

[tucker85]

If you ask 10 orchid growers, what fertilizer to use, you'll get 10 different answers. You'll also get 10 different answers about how to use them. Jack's 30-10-10 is a perfectly good fertilizer for orchids in fir bark. You're correct that many experts recommend high nitrogen fertilizers for orchids grown in fir bark. It's a good idea to decrease the nitrogen in the fall. Bloom booster has been getting negative press for a few years now but I like to use it occasionally, starting in November. You probably want to fertilize once a week in the summer and decrease to once every two weeks in the fall and winter. Starting in November (or whenever it starts to get cool) you could alternate a bloom booster with a 50/50 mix of bloom booster and Jacks every two weeks. High nitrogen isn't good in the fall when the plants aren't growing much. It can keep them from blooming. This is just one suggestion. There are many ways of achieving good results. But the basic principle is more nitrogen in the spring and summer and less nitrogen in the fall and winter. Good luck.

---------- Post added at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:37 PM ----------

I posted my message at the same time that Ray posted his so I didn't get to read it before replying. He's made some excellent points and he's an expert when it come's to fertilizer. In fact I read an excellent article about fertilizers by Ray, last year, in the International Phalaenopsis Alliance newsletter.