At 10.6-4.4-1.7 NPK %s its pretty high in P and quite low in K for houseplants, but it's still a so-so fertilizer and a better choice than any of the fertilizers with P (the middle number) as the highest %. How you fertilize to get the most out of your plants depends on your soil and watering habits. If you water in sips, you might fertilize at low doses infrequently - like maybe every month or so. If you flush the soil regularly when you water, it would be more appropriate to fertilize more frequently at higher doses. W/o some knowledge of the type of soil you're using and some knowledge of how you water, no one can really give you any meaningful advice. It took quite a bit of looking to determine the NPK %s of the fertilizer, but I have no idea what other nutrients it contains. It's important that your plant gets all the nutrients essential to growth - do you have any information that points to its complete nutrient content? It's NPK %s indicate it would be ok for any of your plants, but for the slow growers you might want to cut back on the concentration. It's just another soluble fertilizer, cut from the same cloth as Miracle-Gro, Peters, Schultz, and others. Tell me how you water and I should be able to give you a dosage that will work. Al

Campanula, you are right to be concerned. There are unwanted consequences to every bio-control agent out there. I work in ecological restoration and we really dislike preying mantises and crab spiders, both non-native insect eaters, and we aren't wild about the store-bought ladybugs either as they are an Asian species and they appear to be pushing out the native ladybugs. Things like ladybugs and mantises are generalist predators - they eat whatever they can fit in their mouths. Not good for native species! Parasitic wasps tend to be more specific but still no guarantees. We really dislike Bt as well as it kills all caterpillars - the pestiferous ones and the native butterflies all. My boss doesn't like any bio controls - bugs introduced to control invasive weeds or insects. They will eat native species in the same genus as the target pest, for the most part. The USDA does run tests before it allows these bio controls to be released but their focus is not the same as ours - they support agriculture, and native ecosystems are expendable. Ditto for the EPA's tests of biological pesticides - they don't run them long enough or thoroughly enough to uncover all their negative side effects. The needs of agriculture trump environmental health. But, there are no undisturbed ecosystems. Our gardens are all highly disturbed. Garden plants usually are not native and are planted in disturbed, amended soils and watered with imported water and fertilized with imported materials. Even native plants are exposed to imported diseases and pests and unnatural conditions. I feel it's unfair to the plants to do nothing for them when diseased or attacked by insects. I just keep in mind that there are NO 'safe' pesticides - all have unintended effects on nontarget organisms. And bio control agents won't willingly starve to death once the target pest is gone - they'll eat something else if at all possible. I use cultural controls as much as possible, and companion planting to encourage a mix of beneficial insects and predatory birds. I've also come to the realization that perhaps I should leave food production to the professionals! there's plenty of small scale producers selling at the local farmer's market and I should be supporting them since they do a much better job than I ever could in my little urban backyard.

--"gardenandcats....I think that's awful advice"-- I seriously doubt Gcats meant for it to come out as 'sneak your SK off to counseling while he's at Dad's house under your care and to heck with what Dad/BM say/think'. --" My fianc� and she share joint custody, an he has suggested to get him into counseling many times, she refuses to get him help"-- Even with a 50/50 there is often times a set 'medical decision' maker. If it is truly a she can/he can (meaning either parent can make medical decisions) than there is little BM can do to stop Dad on Dad's 50. Of course for a smoother , perhaps more beneficial, counseling session it would be best for best parents to agree and at some point for both parents to also attend. The idea behind the sessions I will assume is to bring the sides together to agree on ways to cope with child and for child to cope with his new sitatuion. Denying the child ways to cope with life and feelings blah blah blah is hardly in the best interest of the child. The biological parents must work as a team to bring together the help and assistance the child may need. I'm still waiting for answers to above questions. Depending on the answers could be the core of what the child is actually having troubles with. If this child is having dealing and interacting with all children I would assume his teacher and school professionals would have been in contact with BM/Dad and discussed the options in helping the child. If the 'trouble' with the child is only present at home/s and has more to do with divorce, resentment blah blah blah...it's a different ballgame entirely. Being sheffled between to homes in it self can be a major stress factor for some kids. Being compared to two stepsiblings at live 24/7 together from birth on while the 'new child' in does not or perhaps does not even have other siblings is an unfair measure of 'judgement' as to what may or may not be 'wrong' with this child.

To answer a few of your questions my other 2 kids are 8 and 10 yrs old. I treat my stepson like he is my own child. I do not believe in treating them differently. His bio mom constantly abandoned him as he was growing up the longest he ever lived with his mom was when my husband was still married to her and that was for 2 yrs. Since then he has lived with his aunt. His mom never called or visited him even though he only lived 4 hours away. Now she never calls him... She watched and allowed a boyfriend to beat the kid almost to the point of death. I never bad mouth her to him it is not my or my husbands place to do that. It really just breaks my heart knowing he is hurting so bad. He talks about her in a negative way a lot to me. I just listen to him. We will be putting him in counseling soon but were told to wait because we just finally gained custody of him a month ago and don't want him to feel there is something wrong with him. Along with him going I think we are going to do family counseling what can it hurt right?!?!? For all the crap this poor child has gone through is a very respectful well behaved child. He is adjusting really well to having a brother and sister and living with us. He has chosen to confide in me all this stuff and it is so hard to listen to and see the hurt in his little eyes. I constantly reassure him that I love him as if he was my baby. I also have told him if there is something he has a problem with don't understand or don't like that causes him not to be happy lets talk about it and try and work it out. My husband is step-dad to my 2 kids and treats them like his son. So it is a very equal household.