AusBonsai

I've been bouncing between brands but mainly stick with Thrive or Maxicrop, but I'm trying to reduce my fertilising costs without sacrificing quality.

So, what fertilisers do you personally use?

For me i use Maxicrop as a liquid feed or a flowering equivalent for my prunus/ wisteria/ other flowering speices and then a pelletised fertiliser on a 4-6 week rotation. Most of my trees are happy with that with the exception of my Japanese Maples which do not seem to like the pelletised fertiliser and respond with leaf deformities.



What are you fertilising and how frequently are you fertilising?

I use whatever I can get. As long as it is a fertiliser the trees will grow.
I mostly use Thrive soluble with occasional Powerfeed and a couple of times each summer I add a few pellets of chook poo to each pot.

How often have you noticed these leaf deformities in your maples Tim? Are you sure it is caused by the fertiliser? Maybe just a coincidence that a summer problem occurs in summer when you are applying the fertiliser? assuming it is the same problem we have blamed insects, fungi and now fertiliser?

Multiple issues at the same time i would say more than one in particular but it has occurred on multiple J.Maples I used the pelitised fertliser on not just the badly affected one.

The badly affected tree has improved a huge amount since i was ready to wave it off to the bonsai gods, but still some issues therefore i am guessing:
- Repotting cured the worst of the problems > Too much moisture retention in the soil.
- Mega aphid attack in spring > Nuked the bejesus out of them and tree responded well afterward
- I applied the peletised fertiliser > Still had problems
- Wound back my fertilising to liquid only > Problem reduced further
- Lots of healthy growth indespered with some crispy stuff through spring into summer> liklely that the odd hot day here and there got to it a little.

There is definitely some old soil around the nebari still as i had to emergency re-pot during late summer/ early autumn so i just cleared as much as i could ~80-90% of the degraded stuff out. Hopefully with a year of little more stress than cutting back overly strong shoots this year and a full bare root repot next year to clear out the rest of the old soil it will be back on track again.

To reduce your costs buy in bulk and whatever is on sale at your local shop.
I always remember a quote from Shibui on fertilizer brands
Quote; "Trees can't read" so any general purpose fertilizer will do.
That's worked OK for all my trees with a few rare exceptions like banksias
This year I have tried making my own fertilizer cakes from a recipe by Treeman you can find on this site.
So far its the cheapest method of fertilizing I have found and my trees seem to be doing well with it.
However making your own fertilizer does come with some minor issues.
All rodents love stealing and/or eating them and that will require eradication measures.
My place has dogs and my neighbours cats but that's still not enough to keep determined rodents away.
Then there is the curing process that's needed. If you live in a unit I wouldn't recommend it.
On the plus side its very cheap and you can tinker with recipe according to your needs.

Hi ive been using expensive bonsai fertilizer from ebay latdly and the cost is too expensive. Are there any fertilizers available from Bunnings that members use? Also does anyone know good fertilizer deals on the internet?
Thanks
Greg

Have you read the posts above?
Thrive, Maxicrop and Powerfeed are all available at Bunnings and other outlets.

Thanks I sill head to Bunnings and load up. Cheers.

Greg

I almost never use liquids except the occasional kelp drench. Way to much work and you don't get the same results as you do with slow release unless you are feeding very often. (you can feed less often but then you need to increase concentration) If you only have a couple of trees then this won't be an issue of course. It can work, but it has been shown that slow release forms of fertilizing consistently end up with the best plants. An easy way to do this is to use nutricote - if you can get it (from a commercial wholesale outlet) - or an osmocote formulation with the N not to high. Supplement that with a side dressing of blood and bone as you see fit.
This way you know that each time you water, your plants are getting a feed as well. Just as they do in nature.

Whatever I have when I remember... trees doing fine still.