Have you been carried away by the cultivation of orchids? Then you need to know everything about fertilizer for orchids. In this article we will share the secrets of when and how to fertilize these flowers, what kind of fertilizers are. Let's tell you how to care for the plant in the flowering period.
About fertilizers themselves
Now in stores you can buy a huge amount of fertilizers for orchids. Conditionally all of them can be divided into three main groups:
- complex balanced preparations;
- liquids with a high nitrogen content;
- fertilizer for orchids during flowering for its stimulation.
The selection of fertilizers should be based on the composition of the soil, where the flower is planted, and your goals.
We will not consider examples of which fertilizer for orchids is better in this or that case.
- Let the flower be planted in a soil inorganic substrate with fern or oak bark. For general feeding, complex fertilizers for orchids are used. Often they are produced in granules and go in large plastic buckets. On the label you will see the designation NPK 20 \ 20 \ 20. This means that the composition of this fertilizer for orchids in equal shares includes phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium.
- If as the soil for your flowers you use mainly the bark of coniferous trees than to fertilize an orchid? Nitrogen-containing substances. In other words, you are better suited fertilizer with the mark 30 \ 10 \ 10, where 30 - increased nitrogen content.
- For enhanced flowering of orchids, a fertilizer with a high phosphorus content is better.
What fertilizer from the ready solutions it is better to feed orchid? The most common and effective fertilizers for orchids are: Uniflor, Bona Forte, Kemira-lux, Substral and Greenworld.
Now, let's figure out how to properly fertilize orchids. This must be done in certain periods and in certain doses. Usually, flowers with open roots are firstly watered with water and only after half an hour or more (when the plant has completely absorbed water), begin to fertilize. Very careful about the dosage of fertilizer for orchids! Some plant species need a much lower concentration than indicated on the fertilizer pack. It is better to follow instructions for the care of specific types of flowers. If the fertilizer is in granules or sticks, then before fertilizing the orchid, dilute it with water, because in dry form it can damage the fragile root system of the flower.
General rules for orchid fertilization
And, most importantly, consider the recommendations when you need to fertilize orchids:
- Absolutely all flowers need fertilizing in the spring-summer period. Usually, fertilizers are added once a week.
- In the autumn-winter period, the flowers are fed every two to three weeks
- For flowering orchids, fertilize beforehand for a week or two before opening the first buds. Special phosphoric top dressing should be applied in small doses 2 times a week, in a total of 6 servings. This will help stimulate flowering.
- When it is necessary to fertilize an orchid, it is in the morning, preferably on sunny days. Some orchids need to be fertilized only once a year, for example, Dendrobium nobili with the onset of the autumn period
no longer fed up until spring. Otherwise, they will grow and groom well, but they will cease to blossom. - The age of the plant affects the frequency of fertilizing. For example, we will say how often to fertilize a young orchid. To increase the green mass and stimulate the development of the root system, it is necessary to introduce nitrogen fertilizers 2-3 times a week in small doses (3-4 times less than indicated on the package).
Remember the important advice: it is better to overfeed an orchid than to oversaturate! Do not use urea as a fertilizer for orchids, it is not effective.