Fertilizer
 

Looking for a fertilizer recommendation for my phals and oncidiums please.

Almost all work fine if you know how to use them. The magic is in the knowledge, not the fertilizer.

You need to mix the fertilizer stronger if you use it only once a month, and more dilute if you use it at each watering.

If you understand what plants need, then learn how to dilute your fertilizer to different concentrations of nutrients (which isn't difficult), you can successfully use almost anything.

There's a large amount of information in the Free Information section of the First Ray's Web site.

I use what's cheapest for me, which is a 20-20-20 blend with micronutrients I buy at a local agricultural supply company, Wilbur Ellis. I buy it in 40 pound bags. I also use it on other plants. This might not be available to others. I mix my tap water with rain to provide the calcium lacking in the fertilizer.

I use MSU K-Lite Fertilizer - 12-1-1-10Ca-3Mg which is for use with rain water or RO water. You can get it at First Ray's or Tezula. Repot Me sells it, but it's overpriced. As ES says... choose strength you water at based on how often you choose to fertilize. If you're using tap water, you can probably skip the Cal/Mag that's added to it.

Ok. I would probably only do it once a month. I don't have access to RO water or rain water, so I was going to use my Brita to filter water and start watering my orchids with that. In that case, is there a need to fertilize more often and since my tap is hard water can I still use it for fertilizer? Also, is it better to use liquid or the pebble fertilizer? So many questions sorry.

First of all, of all of the factors in orchid culture, fertilizer is the least important. Get the other factors correct (temperature, light, potting media, watering schedule) correct and then worry about the fine points of fertilizer. Orchids, in most cases, need and want very little. With tap water, plain old 20-20-20 or any other "balanced" formulation, is fine. 1/2 of whatever it says on the bottle, or less. It is better to fertilize at a low level more frequently - "Once weekly, weakly" is still good advice. Time release fertilizer is handy for heavy feeders like Cymbidiums and growing-season Catasetinae, but for Phals and Oncidiums, dilute liquid fertilizer is far preferable - they really don't need much.

The Brita filter doesn't remove any minerals, only the chlorine.

You may not need reverse osmosis nor distilled water. Look up your water utility's annual water quality report online to find out the total dissolved solids in your water. If it's under about 175-200 parts per million it's fine for most Phals and Oncidiums.

Powdered fertilizer costs a lot less per quantity of nutrients than liquid fertilizer. With liquid fertilizer you're paying a lot of money for the water used to dilute the powder.

Totally true... when I said "liquid fertilizer" I was assuming that it started out as powder and got "distributed" in water. Sorry about the confusion. (Also, contrast to the time-release pellets)

Hybrid Phals and most Oncidiums aren't fussy about water quality. My tap water ranges from about 180 to 400 ppm total dissolved solids, the largest constituent being calcium carbonate. Other people in my general area have water that is worse than that and still do fine with tap water on most orchids. There are some cloud-forest species that need pure water, but those are not what one is likely to be growing in "early orchid career".

I grew for 15 years with hard tap water, high pH, little to no fertilizer and grew/bloomed hybrid phals, oncidium, dendrobium easily. Started growing some things, some phrags come to mind, and RO made a significant difference. So what Roberta says. And as ES says, fertilizer is way down on the list of things to worry much about.

All very good information. Thank you all! I don't think there is a way to look up my water because I'm on a well system. Although I could be wrong.

I think that wells have to be tested, but I don't know how often. Where are you located?