You might know some of this already, seysonn, but the super simple approach to fertilizing would be to premix up to 1 tbsp of controlled release fertilizer (Dynamite All Purpose Select, for example) per gallon of potting mix and then to apply a soluble fertilizer (Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro, for exampe) at every watering. In general, aim to provide the soluble fertilizer at label rate weekly (so if the recommended rate is 1 tsp per gallon you'd simply divide that by the number of waterings per week). The CRF provides a steady source of nutrients throughout the growing season (which is especially valuable in prolonged wet weather when you don't need to water), and the soluble fertilizer gives you some control over growth rates. If you want to slow down vegetative growth, for example, you can reduce or withhold the soluble fertilizer (or you can alter the NPK ratio with a supplementary product like Pro-TeKt, which can accomplish the same thing). This post was edited by shazaam on Sat, Nov 9, 13 at 10:50

I use fish emulsion for all my roses, both in the ground and in pots. Started doing this last year after a recommendation from one of my favorite rose nurseries, Greenmantle. I tried 3 different brands. The one I liked best is Gro-Tone made by Espoma. Gro-Tone is a nice balanced 2-2-2. It also smells better than fish emulsion often does. Gro-Tone certainly smells like fish but it's more like a fresh fishy aroma. Espoma added mint to make the scent less objectionable too. However it is pricey, and my local nursery doesn't intend to carry it as it didn't sell that well. I bought almost every bottle they had and stockpiled it.;) The other fish fertilizer I liked somewhat was Neptune's Harvest. The numbers on the bottle I have are 2-3-1. It also didn't smell bad though very fresh fishy(I think NH and Espoma use a cold processing method). The NH found at my local nursery is the mix which includes kelp, and I'd prefer not to give that to my roses as I don't think they need it based on soil and water conditions here--yours may be quite different. If I can't get the Gro-Tone, this is the brand I'll use, but their fish-only one which is 2-4-1. I can order direct from NH. The 3rd fish emulsion I used was made by E.B. Stone, fish emulsion with kelp, 4-1-1. It smelled ghastly, like rotten fish. Yuck, I did not enjoy applying it in the garden much less even opening the bottle. In addition, my roses did not respond as well to it as the other two. One reason may be that the water here can be very high in boron, and if the fertilizer also includes that micronutrient plants in this area may object (by showing boron toxicity). I've never seen Muskie in the stores so have never tried it. All the ones I used seemed to be in slightly different concentrations and thus the dilution rates indicated on the bottles were also different. I found this site on the web that carries Muskie: http://www.pthomeandgarden.com/product/9-muskietm-fish-fertilizer-5-1-1 It looks as if on that bottle at least there is some kind of info on the side. Perhaps it is application instructions???? Maybe they didn't put it on all the bottles which would be too bad. Melissa

Any way to delete this post? I was able to read all the re-posts of Al's (Tapla) Container soils and water retention originals and comments and questions (lots of free time! he he) and I believe I have found the answers in there. If there is a way to delete this post. please let me know. Thanks, Robert

@Nil13 made reference to the Whitcomb 311 mix, which is an earlier historical attempt to create a more coarse potting soil for container plants. I think it is extremely helpful to read a document written by Carl Whitcomb that explains how he came on this formula by accident. Essentially what happened is he accidentally left nine test pots under a bench and everyone forgot they were there. They had successfully nearly killed all of their test plants by watering in a normal potting soil mix and the unwatered plants started to do very well. What I have started to realize is that any plant can do well in many different soil mixes, if you are able to carefully control the watering. This explains why so many people on this forum claim gritty mix is not as good for their succulents as their (fill in some random horrible soil with lots of small particles) mix. Inevitably those people are growing their plants indoors. They have enormous experience with their plant type and they know exactly when to water the plant. So that is the case of a very skilled gardener compensating for a very bad soil. What gritty mix does for me is let me grow succulents outside in very abusive weather conditions, without the plant dying. A plant can get a week of rain and it will still drain well. During Summer, gritty mix will tolerate a bit of overwatering, although you still really need to pay attention to not overwatering. Whether you make your 511 mix with perlite/peat, or with two parts Turface, or with lava and pumice, is probably in the big picture not going to be the deciding factor in whether your plants grow well or not. Success can be add with any of those mixes because the size of the particles allows the roots to breathe and prevents capillary action of water from bring the perched water table to the top of the pot and drowning the roots. Fine-tuning how you make 511 is a question of matching the plant type to the moisture retention of the soil and to the watering habit and climate exposure. Any 511 variant is going to do better than almost any commercial potting soil because of the larger particles used in the majority of the mix.