I have a friend who fertilizes his succulents with reduced strength Fish Emulsion 5-1-1 (Alaska brand). He gets some incredible growth from his Jade, and tons of flowers.

Josh

I don't like using organics with potted plants. The microbes that break the material down aren't present enough in a pot. Any regular fertilizer will work. I use Shultz general purpose at half strength.
The pebbles are used as a top dressing. Purely aesthetic. It's possible some of the pictures you're seeing here are pictures of the gritty mix. An inorganic medium used by a lot of growers.

Why would you not want to use a cactus fertilizer? One bottle will last for years and it's not expensive. Cacti are a type of succulent so it shouldn't harm them.

This post was edited by CooperDR on Sun, Feb 8, 15 at 19:11

Cacti fertilizers usually have a ridiculous NPK ratio. Better just to get some 12-4-8 Miracle Grow and cut it to 1/4 strength.

Josh

I use a cactus and succulent fertilizer

And opuntia engelmannii

I use a 20-10-20 with micros at 100ppmN

I use nothing,so far,so good.
Kathi

Well it says cacti and succulent fertilizer on the bottle. If it's too strong just use less.

i feel like i've seen a lot of people here use dyna gro foliage pro . . . you can buy little 8oz bottles on amazon if you're concerned about having way too much on hand

I also just use cacti/succulent liquid fertilizer by Schultz with distilled water. My plants all seem to love it the first year

The pebbles on the top may be to prevent the bottom of the plant from sitting in wet medium before it has time to dry.

I haven't ever used fertilizer for my succulents and I think it really depends on what soil you are using in your pot. Some potting mixes contain different minerals and sometimes already have fertilizer added to it. I will be switching to 1:1:1 Gritty Mix for my medium and will be using the Foliage Pro 9:3:6 fertilizer.

I use Foliage Pro 9:3:6 for all of my plants (some are succulents some are not) but I use it at 1/4 strength most of the time.

Some extraordinary growers (and this is no hyperbole - one is a world authority on many South African mesembs) use no fertilizer ever, so there's that.

Jeff, are the mixes they use devoid of nutrients, too, or are the mixes providing some measure of "fertilization"?

Josh

Josh, Steve Hammer was the main grower I was thinking of - it's mainly Dry Stall and filtered MG Moisture Plus soil for all of his thousands of plants - Ryan can attest to this. I know you're a constant feeder - I guess that makes me a constant starver, but as you intimate the soil is a kind of fertilizer itself, even when additional feeding isn't done. And the MG may have some food mixed into it.

The rocks or pebbles are also put to keep the leaves of the ground. It helps them not to rot.

'The rocks or pebbles are also put to keep the leaves of the ground. It helps them not to rot'.... no, this is not true. The proper height used when potting the plant keeps the leaves off of the soil.

If I recall, caudex1 never fertilized, and he also had amazing plants.

A lot of Caudex's (Keith's) plants did/do time in a bed with free root-run and access to nutrients in the ground. Not all, of course.

Josh

Fertilize? You mean we should fertilize? LOL j/k (Though I honestly don't know the last time I did.)

U almost never fertilize I mix in a little organic soil with my cactys soil but she I do fertaluze I use mirical grow c and s fertilizer

Every April...whether they need it or not. Kinda like bathday. lol

tj

We use Dyna-gro grow (Not Foliage), Dyna-gro Tekt and 7-7-7 time released most of the year. The fertilizer you use depends not just on the plant but your growing environment. In southeast Florida we get tons of rain and it leeches out all nutrients in the soil. It's not unusual for 1" (some days several inches) of rain a day during our rain season which is 7-8 months long. We use liquids mostly during our 4 month non-rainy season and then use the time released (two applications during the rainy season) with scheduled Dyna-Gro Tekt liquid once a month during the summer. Dyna-Gro Tekt gives the plant strength and adsorbs quickly so the rain does not wash it out.

Dyna-Gro source AdeniumRose Company Succulents and cactus