ORCHID FERTILIZERS

Using Orchid Fertilizers

An orchid fertilizer for your orchid, is it really necessary? Most of the orchids have proven that they could live in hard conditions where food is scarce. They live on trees or rocks, depending on the rainfall to bring a little amount of food. Thus providing a fertilizer is some luxury for an orchid. They could even die if you over-fertilize them. They are really simple flowers those can live healthy and happily without adding a fertilizer.

However, if your purpose is to get a well build plant with more amazing flowers then fertilizing will help. But it should be done under two conditions; feeding them with the right amount of fertilizer and it should be done at the right time. Thus bear in mind that timing and the amount of fertilizer are the crucial factors when fertilizing your orchids

In summer for instance, you may extra feed your orchid using a very little amount of fertilizer once in a week. The sufficient amount of the fertilizer in this season is just a ¼ - ½ of the recommended dosage as prescribed on the label. And this should be continued with plain watering for once in a month excluding any fertilizer. The purpose is to wash any mineral build up in the pot.

In winter it will be unnecessary to extra feed your orchid since they will be in an inactive stage. So, do not fertilize because they simply do not need it. Forcing to so, again, will harm your orchid.  

The need for a fertilizer is related to an orchid type. Most of the orchids live on trees as epiphytes with their clinging roots on three branches while some roots are dangling in the air. They entrust their food supply on bird dropping, or from rotten leaves, or dust wiped by the falling rain. Such kind of mutual interaction offers only a very view amount of nutrients to the orchids. Adapted to such condition, orchids can basically thrive well when nutrients are limited.    

Unlike the epiphytes and lithophytes that can live very thrifty, terrestrial orchids have the opportunity to absorb more nutrients from the mineral-rich ground where they live, thus you need to use a little more fertilizer when extra feeding a terrestrial orchid.

Too much fertilizer will cause damage to your orchid and can be fatal. In milder cases the impairment will appear as blooming failure, slow growth with many immature leads growing. Damage can also be detected at the root which looks like burned then your orchid will eventually die. A defected root will not be able to absorb the needed amount of water which will lead to dehydration. In thin leave orchids, like the cymbidium and miltonia orchids, the indication of over-fertilizing is the presence of burned leaf tips.

This situation can be fixed by washing out the pot with plain water to flush out the fertilizer. You may need to repot your orchid and replace the destructive potting media with the new one. If the condition is helpless it will be best if you get rid of the orchid and buy a new one.

Speaking about fertilizers, you can choose among the slow release fertilizer and the liquid form fertilizer. The first one is sold in granule and pellet form, which can be planted in your potting media close to the plant. While the liquid fertilizer comes also in two forms which are the powder form and the liquid concentrate. Both should be diluted in water prior to usage. It is proven that the liquid fertilizer is more suitable to fertilize orchids.