Is miracle grow fertilizer good to use
0ft to light, indirect
4” pot with drainage
Last watered 8 hours ago
6
@QualifiedGarlic if it’s the *only* thing you have, and you already have it or need to stick within a budget, sure, it’ll be fine. Just make sure to dilute the recommended dosage so you’re only using a quarter of what they say you should use.
If you have a choice, I would lean towards a more orchid focused fertilizer. Something like Superthrive Orchid Pro, BetterGro Orchid Fertilizer, both of which are also not very expensive, or perhaps these orchid people have some other rec s for you. @MariansOasis @MusicalRedmint @smushface
How do you water? Do you soak the whole pot? Or just let it drain through?
If you have a choice, I would lean towards a more orchid focused fertilizer. Something like Superthrive Orchid Pro, BetterGro Orchid Fertilizer, both of which are also not very expensive, or perhaps these orchid people have some other rec s for you. @MariansOasis @MusicalRedmint @smushface
How do you water? Do you soak the whole pot? Or just let it drain through?
@QualifiedGarlic my daughter uses the same Miracle Gro mist and her orchids are thriving. I used it for a while then switched to rePotme orchid fertilizer because they make one low in calcium. Our water here in San Diego is very hard, lots of calcium, so I wanted one lower in calcium. The rePotme line might be a bit more expensive, idk 🤷♀️ I didn’t do a cost comparison mainly because I’m not feeding a hoard of orchids 😝 and it is specifically what I was looking for. Haven’t tried Superthrive orchid thst @DreamMachine posted, but I do use their Foliage Pro for my other plants and like it too👍
@QualifiedGarlic @MariansOasis one thing from us that have had Greg for a while, don’t really pay attention to the amounts of water and fertilizer recommended. If you were soaking your orchids before and that was working, do that. There are way too many variables for Greg to get anything right via amounts 👍
I used their orchid fertilizer (maybe ‘orchid food’?) about 15 years ago or so because it was the only thing I could find locally (Home Depot was basically the only plant shop where I was living), and I would use it maybe 1-to-few times per year. It didn’t kill my orchids, they bloomed as expected; that said, I grow orchids in moss (which creates an ecosystem that helps process nutrients the orchid can’t), you are growing in bark, and I’m pretty sure miracle gro is not urea-free (it uses urea-based nitrogen that the orchid needs something like moss to help process it into a usable form, though if you use it with tap water yout plant will probably absorb the nitrogen it needs from dissolved nitrates in tap water). Something labeled as “MSU orchid fertilizer” will be urea-free though. There are other reasons to want to avoid miracle gro (their formulas aren’t great, ethical concerns about their environmental impact or their parent company, etc).
That said, orchids don’t need a ton of nutrients, their roots are biologically designed to trap a lot of trace nutrients from water, and many orchids can grow happily for years without ever being fertilized…. If you only have one orchid and you are *not* giving it distilled water (which is pure water without any dissolved nutrients), you can definitely save your money unless something in your orchid’s health or growth implies a nutrient imbalance (though you may want to consider adding a little moss into your bark mix).
I have fertilized orchids once a year or less and they’ve been happy. I’ve fed them diluted fertilizer once a month for 6 months and nothing special happened other than one or two exhibited fertilizer burn; then I didn’t fertilize them for about 6 months or so, neglected their watering for a few weeks, and almost all of my orchids of different species went into bloom. I’ve also gotten some pretty bad leaf burn from using diluted superthrive.
My orchids are my plants that I fertilize the least, and the motivator is generally me noticing my fertilizer container and thinking “meh, it’s been 6 months or more” or “that one needs a little help”. I have the rePotme MSU fertilizer and more recently bought their time release orchid fertilizer granules; the main deciding factor for me here is “good reviews, appropriate formulation, tiniest possible container because I have limited space and aspire to someday use up a container of orchid fertilizer instead of throwing it out in disgust because it’s a big clump or I’m moving”. One of my frustrations with dissolvable fertilizer is having to keep around a gallon jug to mix it, hence the more recent purchase of their time release orchid fertilizer… I added it a few months ago to a bunch of my orchids (they hadn’t been fertilized in maybe 8 months since 2 or 3 got some burn), they are currently looking super happy, and when I added it to a maxillaria cutting I’d been rooting in moss for a few weeks it rapidly brought all the moss to the green spectrum of life within the next week (so much so that I initially thought it might be algae but it’s thriving moss), and it seemed to start growing more roots and doing it much faster than it had been up to that point.
TL;DR, if you only have one-to-few orchids, you’ve had them for a year or less, and you’re watering with tap (straight or filtered) or spring water, you can probably save your money for a while. And if you do get a fertilizer, I am liking the rePotme time release orchid granules for their rapidly demonstrated effectiveness and the level of laziness and space-saving-tiny-container-ness they provide.
That said, orchids don’t need a ton of nutrients, their roots are biologically designed to trap a lot of trace nutrients from water, and many orchids can grow happily for years without ever being fertilized…. If you only have one orchid and you are *not* giving it distilled water (which is pure water without any dissolved nutrients), you can definitely save your money unless something in your orchid’s health or growth implies a nutrient imbalance (though you may want to consider adding a little moss into your bark mix).
I have fertilized orchids once a year or less and they’ve been happy. I’ve fed them diluted fertilizer once a month for 6 months and nothing special happened other than one or two exhibited fertilizer burn; then I didn’t fertilize them for about 6 months or so, neglected their watering for a few weeks, and almost all of my orchids of different species went into bloom. I’ve also gotten some pretty bad leaf burn from using diluted superthrive.
My orchids are my plants that I fertilize the least, and the motivator is generally me noticing my fertilizer container and thinking “meh, it’s been 6 months or more” or “that one needs a little help”. I have the rePotme MSU fertilizer and more recently bought their time release orchid fertilizer granules; the main deciding factor for me here is “good reviews, appropriate formulation, tiniest possible container because I have limited space and aspire to someday use up a container of orchid fertilizer instead of throwing it out in disgust because it’s a big clump or I’m moving”. One of my frustrations with dissolvable fertilizer is having to keep around a gallon jug to mix it, hence the more recent purchase of their time release orchid fertilizer… I added it a few months ago to a bunch of my orchids (they hadn’t been fertilized in maybe 8 months since 2 or 3 got some burn), they are currently looking super happy, and when I added it to a maxillaria cutting I’d been rooting in moss for a few weeks it rapidly brought all the moss to the green spectrum of life within the next week (so much so that I initially thought it might be algae but it’s thriving moss), and it seemed to start growing more roots and doing it much faster than it had been up to that point.
TL;DR, if you only have one-to-few orchids, you’ve had them for a year or less, and you’re watering with tap (straight or filtered) or spring water, you can probably save your money for a while. And if you do get a fertilizer, I am liking the rePotme time release orchid granules for their rapidly demonstrated effectiveness and the level of laziness and space-saving-tiny-container-ness they provide.
Ok, update, I believe I fertilized my orchids with the rePotme time release granules a little over 2 months ago after one of my blooming Bellinas cannibalized a leaf to sustain its back to back blooms, and I hadn’t fertilized them since some time last summer/fall.
(Disclaimer, all my plants are looking a bit sad because I just got back from vacation today and had been a little neglectful on watering for a few weeks before I went out of town)
Photos 👇
Mini mason jar has Maxillaria cutting (which love water, so I keep it moist), it had been in there with newly rehydrated sphagnum for a few weeks and was slowly rooting and the moss was still pretty uniformly tan, within a week of adding granules the moss and cutting experienced explosive growth (it is actively growing little moss sproutlets — not algae).
Dark green mini mark leaf — that started its growth around the time I fertilized, growth is shiny and healthy.
Light green/in bloom bellina coerulea — I got it in spike early last fall and it had stalled growing. At the time I tried fertilizer and super thrive and nothing improved / it just burned the tip of one of the leaves. I figured it was a temperamental slow grower and just focused on giving it stable conditions but it did very little beyond growing roots. It started growing that shiny new leaf slowly in winter, started a new spike around the time I fertilized, spike growth was rapid and it bloomed without delay. The leaf’s coloration improved after fertilizing with the granules, I suspect that something in them is something that the MSU fertilizer and superthrive I’d tried before was lacking.
I may have different opinions a year from now, but this is the first time I’ve fertilized my orchids and felt like I saw any significant effect to some of them (and definitely the first time I’ve seen a drastic positive effect from fertilizer on moss growth). I’m also probably using less than their recommended amount, I was eyeballing it when I sprinkled it on.
(Disclaimer, all my plants are looking a bit sad because I just got back from vacation today and had been a little neglectful on watering for a few weeks before I went out of town)
Photos 👇
Mini mason jar has Maxillaria cutting (which love water, so I keep it moist), it had been in there with newly rehydrated sphagnum for a few weeks and was slowly rooting and the moss was still pretty uniformly tan, within a week of adding granules the moss and cutting experienced explosive growth (it is actively growing little moss sproutlets — not algae).
Dark green mini mark leaf — that started its growth around the time I fertilized, growth is shiny and healthy.
Light green/in bloom bellina coerulea — I got it in spike early last fall and it had stalled growing. At the time I tried fertilizer and super thrive and nothing improved / it just burned the tip of one of the leaves. I figured it was a temperamental slow grower and just focused on giving it stable conditions but it did very little beyond growing roots. It started growing that shiny new leaf slowly in winter, started a new spike around the time I fertilized, spike growth was rapid and it bloomed without delay. The leaf’s coloration improved after fertilizing with the granules, I suspect that something in them is something that the MSU fertilizer and superthrive I’d tried before was lacking.
I may have different opinions a year from now, but this is the first time I’ve fertilized my orchids and felt like I saw any significant effect to some of them (and definitely the first time I’ve seen a drastic positive effect from fertilizer on moss growth). I’m also probably using less than their recommended amount, I was eyeballing it when I sprinkled it on.
