Bonsai Food
Everything you need to know about Bonsai Food
One of the critical parts to ensuring that you will succeed in your bonsai adventure is making sure to choose the right bonsai food. Bonsai food can be a little bit of a complicated matter because you are feeding plants and not animals. It may not be altogether clear what the best kind of plant nutrient to use as you embark on your bonsai adventure.
Bonsai food helps maintain your tree’s health by supplying it with the proper nourishment. The limited amount of soil in your bonsai’s cramped pot requires that you add a nutritional fertilizer to its diet.
Bonsai Food Portion Size
The size of the portions is just as important as the type of food that you feed your bonsai. An infant tree may need less food than a growing tree; a growing tree, more food than an ancient one.
Another consideration to have in mind is the time of year. If it is spring and your bonsai has just started to grow again, then it will need extra food to help bolster the amount of energy your plant is expending. If, however, your bonsai is hibernating in the dead of winter, your portions will probably be small and the time in between feedings is likely to expand.
Feeding Schedule
How much time should elapse between feedings is contingent on the type of bonsai that you have. Typically, however, you feed most bonsais according to the following schedule:
During the growing season—in spring—when you tree is beginning to sprout and stretch its limbs, this is when you want to feed your bonsai every two weeks. However, if it is the dead of winter, you can probably limit your feedings to once a month if your tree still has leaves. If your tree has lost all its leaves, that means that it has gone fully into hibernation—you should not feed it during this period. If your tree never loses its leaves, however, you should keep to a once a month feeding.
Don’t forget, of course, that the climate-controlled weather inside your house means that for most of these bonsais it is always a sort of summer time. You should change feeding patterns accordingly.
What to look for in a good fertilizer.
Typically, you will want a fertilizer with high nitrogen content when you are trying to grow a young tree in the spring. As the summer starts to drag, you should switch to a balanced fertilizer with half nitrogen.
Nitrogen is not only an important nutrient to make sure that you bonsai grows properly, but is also one of the necessary chemicals to help your bonsai achieve a healthy hue. Besides nitrogen, your fertilizer should also contain phosphorous and potassium.
An already prepared liquid bonsai fertilizer can be just what the doctor ordered. In this form, the fertilizer can soak right down to where the roots can absorb it.
Danger: Don’t Feed During Repotting
A rookie mistake for first time bonsai caretakers is to feed the bonsai right after re-soiling. This adjustment period for the bonsai in its new pot is a bad time to try to feed it since this will just add stress to your plant and increase the chances of it succumbing to one of the bugs that threaten its health.
Food of course is only one consideration when growing a bonsai tree. You will also want to consider factors like the amount of light necessary and how much to water your plant. Remember that each time you water the soil of your bonsai you wash away vital nutrients. Therefore, if it is a hot dry summer and you find yourself watering your bonsai more than the usual amount to compensate for the dryness, you also may need to compensate with your fertilizer.
If you feed your bonsai properly, it should give you many years of joy and fascination—as only an uncanny miniature tree can.