newbie question: Shultz Orchid Food?

[lisadpa]

Hi, thank you for a wonderful forum!

I received my first orchid for Mother's Day, a Phal. I've always wanted to grow orchids, they are so elegant and beautiful!

I haven't purchased fertilizer yet because my Phal will not need watering for a while (the poor thing was sitting in water, I fixed that and inspected the roots, cut off a few black ones--the rest look ok, hope everything will be ok!)

Anyway, I saw Shultz Orchid Food in my supermarket's flower shop. Is this good? If not, what should I buy? I live in NE PA, we keep the house around 68-70 F. It's not too humid now, but will be come June-Sept.

Thanks!

Lisa
newbie!

[DDS2007]

hi lisa and welcome to the forum ,

for my orchids i use the normal 10-10-10 fertilizer used for most home plants but dilute it to a quarter strength. i'm sorry i can't help you with the fertalizer brand you're using maybe our USA members could help better

just wanted to welcome you here and happy growing!

[Aniko]

I'm currently using Schultz plant food, it's OK - Any balanced fertilizer is good as DDS2007 said.

[fzzdk]

I'm using Shultz Orchid Food and I haven't managed to kill anything yet, so it gets a thumbs up from me :P

[fred]

Hi and welcome to the forum Lisa

I hope you enjoy your stay here with us

If you have any qusestions please ask as no question is deemed silly here.

I hope that you enjoy chatting with our members as we are a friendly bunch.

Do you have any pics of your orchids

happy chatting

[jerrymeola]

All reputable brands are about the same. the major difference is in the trace elements. Unfortunately, you can not determine by the bag in most cases exactly what trace elements are available in the product and no one knows how much of each is optimal.

Schultz is probably as good as any.

Some people avoid Urea based fertilizers, but I know many Florida nurseries that use them.

[lisadpa]

Thanks!

I'll try taking some photos and posting them here. It looked better when I first got it home as 3 of the flowers are done now...but it's pretty.

I was tempted to buy another at a grocery store, it was it so lovely but I resisted. You guys are teaching me so much already!

[pikevi]

Welcome to the forum.

I use 'Schultz' (19:31:17) as well, along with 'plantprod' (25:10:10).

Both are specially made for orchid, according to the labels. Both are quite different in the ratio of N,P, and K. So I use 'schultz', every 3rd application.

[lisadpa]

I did it...there's my pretty little thing!

[pikevi]

very pretty, lisadpa.

congrats.

[janet_a]

i rotate the schultz with jack's and msu--nothing dead yet. (well, at least not from the fertilizer. )