Superfly Bonsai fertilizer

[Gary McCarthy]

At the Superfly Bonsai booth at the National one item that got my attention was their high nitrogen 12-4-5 PUSH fertilizer product. It's meant to push the growth of foliage, trunks, and branches for trees in development. Has anybody tried this product and what were your results?

Thanks.

 

[Anthony]

Gary,

combined with our compost of Leucaena, and 1/3 Miracle Gro lawn fertiliser
we would get a similar NPK plus micro nutrients.
Been growing like that for years.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

If I'm not using cow dung, I mix my own fertilizer with somewhat the same ratios of N, P and K as that product.
But, I pay around 5 bucks per nutrient bucket (2kg's) which will last a year or 10. Most 'specialized' products are built on the cannabis-principle that goes a little like this: As soon as you specify the type of gardening/plant on the label, you can increase the price with 3000%.
With me being a Dutch cheapskate, that just doesn't work: I'm not paying 30 bucks for something I can make for 3 cents and 5 minutes of my time.

There's a general rule that plants push more growth if nitrogen is dosed relatively higher. Flowers can be fed with relatively higher P and K and a bit lower N, however, that is very much disputed by a lot of people. It's true that in agriculture, plants take up higher P and K during seed formation. But that's usually not what we're after in bonsai.
It doesn't matter much in our circumstances. But I want people to see that they're being scammed if they buy high priced, branded and 'specialized' nutrients.

 

[bonsaichile]

At the Superfly Bonsai booth at the National one item that got my attention was their high nitrogen 12-4-5 PUSH fertilizer product. It's meant to push the growth of foliage, trunks, and branches for trees in development. Has anybody tried this product and what were your results?

Thanks.

I have not tried it, but I use miraclegro whoch has the same amount of N for my trees in development. My fertilizimg regime in early spring is organoc slow release pellets with lower N concentrations (green gold, I believe is the brand) and once a week full-force miraclegro. My substrate is all inorganic, by the way. In summer I reduce the pellets and from now to first freeze, I am only using a 0-10-10 once a week to help with hardiness.