Transcript:
Hey, lets! Andrea, with sex for you in Houston, Texas. And I’ve had a lot of requests for a video on fertilizing. Your succulent, so here we are, you always hear me suggesting to use topsoil because that means you have more control over the nutrients in your potting mix. The pre bought stuff tends to come with the little tiny balls of time, release fertilizer and a quick little frog, eggs or Eve. See them before, so I get ones. In particular if they have too much nitrogen in their system at the wrong time, it’s not in balance with the other nutrients that they’re processing. Then there’s a lot of things that could go wrong. First off succulents really don’t need any extra fertilizer. They’re really good at making the most of the nutrients in the soil, the drainage materials you add, so they’re mix, have a lot of good minerals, and if they’re getting rainwater that contains a lot of good nutrients, so in a lot of situations, you don’t even need to worry about it, but I know a lot of yall are nurturers and you want to make sure your plants are happy, so some quick tips on fertilizing don’t fertilize when they’re not in their growing season. Don’t realize like when they’re dormant, say through winter. Don’t fertilize when it’s going to be overcast for a few days in a row. When you do fertilize, you want to use a food that has a lower nitrogen content than the other nutrients. I’ll explain why in a minute you can dilute your all-purpose plant food, but you’re gonna need to like. If this one says mix one teaspoon per gallon of water for houseplants, you’re gonna want to mix one teaspoon per floor gallons of water for your succulents and feed them is a part of their regular watering schedule. It’s not an extra snack in between waterings, he just, you know, water them as usual with the additional fertilizer in the water, and that’s it when I do feed my second lights when I remember too, I use this Schulz. Cactus, plus seven drops per quart of water, a link to it in the video description below, and it’s really simple. This bottle is like seven bucks. Maybe, and it lasts me at least a year. So when you’re looking for fertilizer for your succulents, you’re going to look for the fertilizer grade or the NPK balance, and that’s the three numbers that are on, you know, most containers of plant food and it’s NPK, so those three numbers the first then those all the N is a chemical symbol for nitrogen. The P is a chemical symbol for phosphorus in decay is the chemical symbol for potassium, and you want the nitrogen to be lower because a they’re already going to be getting a lot of nitrogen from, you know, any kind of soil is already going to be like it’s gonna be somewhat organic, and that means it contains nitrogen. The problems can arise when there’s too much nitrogen in a plant let alone in a succulent nitrogen encourages stem growth and neave growth and too much too soon in an in a succulent can not only cause the growth to become out of balance with the other. You know, things going on in your plant like root growth pests detect nitrogen in plants and it tracks them and it will weaken your plant and that’s why you see a lot of times when you see mealybugs or even spider mites. Those are, that’s a big one that is attracted to nitrogen. They tend to go for the new growth because that that’s has the most concentration or nitrogen, any like, but the new leaves, so since most potting situations, there’s already plenty of nitrogen readily available, a good segment fertilizer is going to have a lower content of nitrogen than the other nutrients on the inverse house plants. You know, they’re putting out leaves. They’re processing the nitrogen, a lot more quickly because they’re growing faster, so they’re gonna have a higher level of nitrogen in their food, so what plants use nitrogen for leaf growth and like the the speed of the growth itself, phosphorus is used to develop roots flowers, And that means you know, chance of seeds. Potassium helps plants develop strong stems rather than like long stems, and it also helps them ward off diseases so that you have the most control over when your plants are getting fed. I really recommend, you know a liquid fertilizer as opposed to something you add directly to the soil because again you you don’t have control over it once you let it go into the soil, you know, every time you water over time, the plant, it’s gonna be steadily up, taking these nutrients that they may not need at that time. You want to stop fertilizing about a month before the end of a growing season because a you know plant that is cold, dormant or heat dormant isn’t going to be able to process the nutrients correctly. And then you probably gonna be just fine, not fertilizing your second ones. There are very efficient plants. They are very good at making the most out of what you give them or what’s already in their soil, and that’s that’s what they are. That’s what they do. They’re, they’re slow growers, so you don’t want to try and force them to grow too fast, you know? I know we all like to give our give our succulents a lot of extra love, but if you try to, you know, feed them at the wrong time. You know, they’re not gonna be happy. They can cause a lot of problems and you can. You can kill them with kindness. Well, thanks for watching. I hope this video was helpful. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below and click show more under the video descriptions. Because I always leave more information down there like you know where I find this stuff and I have to think yall. I hit 30 thousand subscribers this week. We’re at 30,000 strong, and that is just it’s just mind-blowing to me. I’m so grateful, and if you haven’t subscribed yet, you should because when I post on the community page, it’ll send out a notification and, you know, always asking you guys. You know what video topics you want me to, you know, make for yall. What’s going on in your neck of the woods? What problems are you having right now with a climate? What do you want to know more about and that’s how? I make sure that these videos mean something and they’re relevant and they’re helpful and I need your feedback, so please subscribe. Thanks so much, yall.