Plant Specific Fertiliser - any good ?

Does anyone use these plant specific fertilisers , as Palm Focus and Olive Focus , or similar? They do get very good reviews on Amazon . I would like to have verdant fronds Can they raise the dead ?

 

Im always seeing these and im tempted but just cant see them being any better than other cheaper good quality feeds, eg growmore,seaweed and a bit of epsom salts when needed. Im probably wrong but thats my feeling on fertilisers.

Its like buying motor oil, marketing.

 

You can buy all kinds of stuff these days.
Fuchsia fertiliser, Citrus fertiliser, Cacti fertiliser, the list goes on, but they all contain the same stuff.
Agreed, occasionally in varying quantities, with trace elements, but my thoughts are they are just to catch the unwary and get us all buying different bottles of this and that for each an every plant.

 

I have seen Baby Bio 'Orchid' fertiliser. When you look at the N:P:K levels, it was exactly half of the ones for the normal Baby Bio, but they were charging more. No extra trace elements. A lot cheaper to buy the basic one and dilute it twice as much
The only specialist one I would buy is for Proteas, since you have to completely avoid phosphates.

 

Hi,

Think it really depends on what you are growing, if its a bit of everything then yes its simpler to use a general fertiliser for most plants, but if you are specializing like I did last year, with a good few Fuchsias and Orchids then have found using two types , growth and flower, does seem to give better results.

Used the Chempak no2 and their Fuchsia feed, plus their Tomato feed which also seemed at least as good as the more typical liquids.
Orchids need a very weak feed and found the Vitax ones good so far.

 

Less persuaded these days as to the necessity for specific fertilisers.
Research what plants really need.
Epsom salts and seaweed sprays for me too

 

I agree regarding High nitrogen High potash etc.
Just dont get the idea of plant specific fertilizers.

 

Hi,

Do look at those Vitax orchid fertilisers, they are only about £3 a bottle and you only use 5ml per ltr of water, very economic and my phals are putting on fair growth and starting to spike again.

 

NO....you'd need a miracle for that....



I'll get my coat..........

 

Hi ricky101 - yes, they're not a bad price, but I'm VERY mean... I buy pound shop fertilisers - they have different ones with high nitrogen or high potash. Then I dilute them fairly heavily. My cattleyas and vandas do fine on them!