mixing jacks 20-20-20 for bonsai..

[dannylightning]

cant really seem to find anything on this as far as how strong to mix it...

i have a Brazilian rain tree and a ficus most bonsai fertilizer seems to have much lower numbers like 5-5-5 or 7-9-5 and i have heard this stuff mixed too strong can burn out some roots and what not but it seems to be really good stuff so i figured i would give it a try.

i am trying to figure out how much of this to mix in a gallon of water before i start using it. since its winter and the plants are in the house ill probably do the fertilizer once a month

directions say 1/2 teaspoon every other week for indoor plants. should i do 1/4 teaspoon once a month or stick with 1/2 teaspoon or what..

thanks..

 

[aml1014]

I do 1 tablespoon per gallon if the tree is in bonsai soil, if it's in a more organic mix I do half that dosage. I get this stuff free from my work in early summer and I've never had issues with burning. Hope that helps.

Aaron

 

[c54fun]

Danny I had a thread on Jacks professional 20 20 20. I ended up starting with 1 teaspoon then worked up to about 1.5 teaspoons per gallon.

http://www.bonsainut.com/threads/jacks-professional.24856/#post-389985

 

[dannylightning]

Danny I had a thread on Jacks professional 20 20 20. I ended up starting with 1 teaspoon then worked up to about 1.5 teaspoons per gallon.

http://www.bonsainut.com/threads/jacks-professional.24856/#post-389985

thanks, i was searching for jacks 20 20 20 on here and not much came up that seemed related.. ill check out your thread.

 

[Anthony]

!/3 strength in moist soil for growing trees in sun weekly.
Probably 1/6 strength every two or three weeks in winter to late spring, into moist soil.

The organic oil meal cake gives 6 N , which might work better for you.
Read the instructions, carefully ------ please.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[dannylightning]

!/3 strength in moist soil for growing trees in sun weekly.
Probably 1/6 strength every two or three weeks in winter to late spring, into moist soil.

The organic oil meal cake gives 6 N , which might work better for you.
Read the instructions, carefully ------ please.
Good Day
Anthony

i just watched a video on youtube, guy says with tropical plants like mine are i should fertilize every 2 weeks even in the winter.

he was saying jacks or miracle grow is basally made to make your plants grow like crazy which may be good for plants just starting out.. but if its already a established bonsai and you like the shape of it and all that it may not be the best thing to use. i could cause them to get root bound in your pot pretty fast or make them grow so fast they start needing trimmed more often and what not..

maybe 1/4 teaspoon in a gallon of water would be ok every 2 weeks. on the package it says use 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water every time you water your plats so that must be a weak mixture. maybe i should go with that mixture bi-weekly for now, i am thinking maybe a organic fertilizer would probably be a better way to go if those are more for keeping plants healthy compared to something like jacks that is said to make them grow faster.

im looking for the tree to get the nutrients it needs to stay healthy, not grow super fast.

the instructions dont say much except use this much for every watering, this much twice a month.. this much once a month ect.. when you start talking about 1/3 or 1/6 strength i am a little lost..

 

[Anthony]

Danny,

what happens with newbies, is they interfere a great deal with the 1 plant [ or two ] they have.
AND it dies.
They will want to prune, wire, fertilise, bare root, repot and so on, especially when they are bored in Winter.

My advice would be wait until late spring and if you want to fertilise a very weak solution into moist soil or
go with the organic oil meal cakes.

It is hard to get someone to just learn how / when to water --------------- it is so boring.

Which is why we usually suggest 5 / 10 / 20 plants, normally ficus and we suggest. go away for 6 months and see if the plants
survive. These are normally just rooted cutting,with maybe 20 leaves a plant.

BUT that is down here where apartment dwelling is rare and everyone has some size of a yard, outdoors.

Might I suggest you read, inter library loan -------- plants from your area, or many bonsai books and take notes.
Wishing you all the best.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[dannylightning]

Danny,

what happens with newbies, is they interfere a great deal with the 1 plant [ or two ] they have.
AND it dies.
They will want to prune, wire, fertilise, bare root, repot and so on, especially when they are bored in Winter.

My advice would be wait until late spring and if you want to fertilise a very weak solution into moist soil or
go with the organic oil meal cakes.

It is hard to get someone to just learn how / when to water --------------- it is so boring.

Which is why we usually suggest 5 / 10 / 20 plants, normally ficus and we suggest. go away for 6 months and see if the plants
survive. These are normally just rooted cutting,with maybe 20 leaves a plant.

BUT that is down here where apartment dwelling is rare and everyone has some size of a yard, outdoors.

Might I suggest you read, inter library loan -------- plants from your area, or many bonsai books and take notes.
Wishing you all the best.
Good Day
Anthony

Sorry that you find someone trying to properly take care of their plant boring.. in my hobbies some of which are extremely technical I cant even tell you how much time i spend with people telling them the same stuff over and over and over and over, but to me helping people never gets old. with photography i give free classes to people, explain to them about the different equipment ect..

when it comes to the RC helicopters which is rediuclous how much there is to it, i dont even know how many RC helicopters I have build for people or how many i have fixed for people, or how many hours i have spent teaching people about this stuff.

takes a good 10-15 hours for a experienced person to build one, after it is build you have to set up all the electroncs and program everything... the ESC that powers everything and controls the motor has about 5-10 settings, the flybarles unit has a good 50+ settings that need to be set up perfectly or its gonna crash before it even gets off the ground, than you have the settings in the radio controller, there are about 40 different menus and most of those menus have several different adjustments in them and those all have to be set up perfect.. after its all build and ready to fly you got to tune everything to get it flying as good as possible..

when you get them they come in a box and you have thousands of parts in baggies all waiting to be built.. ill show you a photo.. I help people as much as i can possibly can and dont ask for a damn thing back.. i never find it boring..




I am trying to figure out how to take care of my plant properly and how to keep it alive and healthy.. it seems like such a easy question that none one can seem to just give a simple answer too.. a simple answer would........ be mix this much per gallon of water and use it this often..






when the ups man brings it to you, you get a small box and when you open that box you have something like this going on.







and when you are done it tuns into something like this..








here are a few photos of a few of the menus for setting up the electronics.. again sorry if you think helping people is boring but helping people i what i love to do..

 

[GrimLore]

im looking for the tree to get the nutrients it needs to stay healthy, not grow super fast.

Mix a 1/2 teaspoon in 1 gallon of water and apply some twice a month for your desired results. All of our indoor plants, and plants that need to be inside do fine with that mix. Anything more and they get very leggy and we as well do not want excessive growth, just good health.
I will add that I use timers keeping them under light for 16 hours a day. Also, fertilize with that mix 20 minutes or so after just watering for best results. Do not be surprised if the Rain tree grows a lot even with lower doses of fertilizer. Once they acclimate to the indoors they are fast growers even in less then ideal situations.
Very nice work on those RC's!

Grimmy

 

[JudyB]

I use a maintenance dosage as a continuous feed, so they are constantly getting food. 1/4 tsp per gallon, but Dyna-Gro is what I use. With each watering. When you're in an inorganic soil, continuous feeding keeps the nutrients available to the plant.

 

[dannylightning]

i bought my ficus tree to learn how to take care of a bonsai plant. i was not planning on buying a nicer tree till I knew what i was doing but i saw this rain tree and loved it so i picked it up and i just want to make sure it stays healthy. I just want to make sure I do things correctly so i do not kill it or harm it..

the raintree for the most part should need very little work, just regular trimming, watering and fertilizing.. there was one branch that looked out of place so that branch got a wire. besides that hopefully it wont need anything but the basic stuff to keep it healthy..

the ficus i have wired up a good deal, its my tree to experiment on but i want to do as little as possible to the raintree.

 

[dannylightning]

Mix a 1/2 teaspoon in 1 gallon of water and apply some twice a month for your desired results. All of our indoor plants, and plants that need to be inside do fine with that mix. Anything more and they get very leggy and we as well do not want excessive growth, just good health.
I will add that I use timers keeping them under light for 16 hours a day. Also, fertilize with that mix 20 minutes or so after just watering for best results. Do not be surprised if the Rain tree grows a lot even with lower doses of fertilizer. Once they acclimate to the indoors they are fast growers even in less then ideal situations.
Very nice work on those RC's!

Grimmy

thanks. these things fly upside down and do all kind of tricks, i had sponsor ship offers from a few of the RC manufacturers but they want you to travel all over the place and compete in contest and all you get from them is a discount on their products, all the travel expenses come out of your own pocket, the only people who get anything good are the ones that win the big contest and i cant compete with them at all. its a very cool hobby but it can get very expensive. I haven't been into flying so much cus it was sucking up all of my money and right now i cant afford a crash that cost hundreds of dollars, i usually only have a crash once a year or once every other year but still, i mainly fly my little foam air plane every now and again.. you crash that you can just glue the foam back together and maybe replace a propeller that only cost a few bucks..

here is a video of me flying one if you want to check it out.

 

[M. Frary]

Sorry that you find someone trying to properly take care of their plant boring

He wasn't saying you were boring.
What he's saying is that you will be bored with only 2 "bonsai plants" . New people tend to love their trees to death.
He is saying to get a few so you don't over work yours.
The more you can leave them alone the better off they will be. Keep busy by having more trees.
I don't keep trees indoors so I won't even try to tell you how to fertilize them.

 

[GrimLore]

here is a video of me flying one if you want to check it out.

That is really impressive! A few years back I "tried" and could only manage to get my friends to hover a few feet off the ground. He actually said I did great for my first try but I found it to make me tense and not relaxing as I thought. Your flight skills are just WOW!

Grimmy

 

[Anthony]

Danny,

my brother -in-law is 37 years into Bonsai, I am about 27 or so.
AND we still teach for free as well as give away plants for free ---------- no sales.

It takes 3 to 5 years to master Health ------------- which is watering and simple care - placement for light
etc.

Please read what I wrote, not skim and then get upset.

Good to see your planes, K my B.I.L repairs them as a hobby and gives them to mostly boys at Homes
for Children. He gets them from various toys stores down here, listed by them as junked /trashed.

When you wire a plant, you disrupt it's system and we do not fertilise them for at least a month.
We do fertilise for a month before, cutting or guy wiring.
Our rest period is from roughly Christmas until February's end. Things start to wake up after that.

We use the Chinese technique of directional pruning - Lingnan - Grow and Clip.
Wishing all the best.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[M. Frary]

AND we still teach for free as well as give away plants for free ---------- no sales

I really need to get down there!

 

[dannylightning]

72 60

That is really impressive! A few years back I "tried" and could only manage to get my friends to hover a few feet off the ground. He actually said I did great for my first try but I found it to make me tense and not relaxing as I thought. Your flight skills are just WOW!

Grimmy

Thanks. flying the helicopters are not relaxing at all.. that video was some big smooth flying which is what i enjoy the most, when i start flying really aggressively and can definitely add some more stress but people seem to enjoy watching the more aggressive stuff allot more.. i picked up on the hobby pretty fast and it started to get easy after a while, but ill tell you, when learning to fly the collective pitch helicopters there were lots of shaking hands and near anxiety attacks lol.. my flying is good but i suck compared to the really high end pilots.. it took me about 5 or 6 years to get to that point..

if you have not heard of tareq alsaadi here is a treat for you, he is royalty in the middle east and in my opinion the best heli pilot in the world. he is also one of the nicest people you will ever meet, i talk to him online sometimes. he does his best to answer ever single message people send to him and help anyone he can.. which is amazing cus i am sure people bombard him with messages all the time, plus he is royalty, i think a prince if i remember correctly.. this video is not one of his crazy aggressive flight but it shoes just how much control the guy has with these things..

he crashs allot and has a person who repairs all of them for him, lat i heard form him he said has a whole room full broken helicopters waiting to be repaired and he has 2 or 3 rooms full of good flying ones.. he has no idea how many RC helicopters he actually owns. its crazy..

 

[dannylightning]

Danny,

my brother -in-law is 37 years into Bonsai, I am about 27 or so.
AND we still teach for free as well as give away plants for free ---------- no sales.

It takes 3 to 5 years to master Health ------------- which is watering and simple care - placement for light
etc.

Please read what I wrote, not skim and then get upset.

Good to see your planes, K my B.I.L repairs them as a hobby and gives them to mostly boys at Homes
for Children. He gets them from various toys stores down here, listed by them as junked /trashed.

When you wire a plant, you disrupt it's system and we do not fertilise them for at least a month.
We do fertilise for a month before, cutting or guy wiring.
Our rest period is from roughly Christmas until February's end. Things start to wake up after that.

We use the Chinese technique of directional pruning - Lingnan - Grow and Clip.
Wishing all the best.
Good Day
Anthony

maybe i took your comment about being boring the wrong way.. that's awesome you guys do that and that is some great information you provided in this post. thank you..

 

[c54fun]

Danny, I fly rc helicopters too. Years and years. If you use rc heli logic to your bonsai they will probably die. I know very well. Heli's have to constantly be checked over and over again as you know. What Anthony was saying is 100% true in the fact if you mess with them to much it can kill them.

Nice video great looking heli.

Going to give you reverse logic what Anthony see's in someone new to bonsai using a heli approach.
Guy shows up to the flying field. He has a new 450 size heli. You start talking to him and find out he just built it himself and has never flown. You mention it may be a good idea for you to check it out first to make sure its good to go. Guy tells you he followed the directions and its good to go. Another guy mentions it a good idea to let someone else at least look it over. Guy spools it up and the pitch is backwards and it shoots up in the air then crashes. You having experience knew the heli would probably crash.

This type of thing is very common with bonsai in that people that have experience can see whats going/could happen.

 

[c54fun]

I think Tareq is some kind of super cyborg. His skills are crazy. I remember when he first started showing his skills. VERY talented.