Re: fertilizing advice? Same as with soil in the ground depends on what is already there and how it is affected by mineral content of water being used. Commercial growers have to find out what this situation is for them to produce successful crops. However, since sampling and testing may seem like an extravagance for one potted specimen then you would try something like a general fruit fertilizer in granular form or a pelleted fertilizer like Osmocote, again using a formulation that seems appropriate. Go to an independent garden center with a possibility of having sales staff that actually knows something and describe what you want to do, see what they have for you.
Re: fertilizing advice? Man has been successfully involved in agriculture for many years without knowing about 20-20-20 etc. China has fed millions of people for centuries without commercial fertilizers. Not that fertilizers don't help, but reliance on them for plant growth is self defeating in the long run- in my opinion. I suggest the way grow plants is good land use without commercial fertilizers. I know a farmer in London, Ontario and he told me the cost of the fertilizer for growing corn is almost prohibitive. The land is almost only a holder of the corn with no nutrients of life, except fertilizer added for growing. The out-come of the 'Green Revolution' is probably a disaster. Some third world countries are reverting to the old conventional methods, since the cost of fertilizer is beyond their means. Fertilizer, herbicides, insecticides and no-till are the best methods for destroying good agriculture land for short term gain. My view.
Re: fertilizing advice? In my opinion....Manure all the way! Does using commercial fertilizer really destroy soil?
Gardenlover, commercial fertilizers have a couple of draw backs. Prices have gone through the roof the same way the natural gas that heats your house has - that's because fertilizers are a fossil fuel product. You and the fertilizer manufacturers are completing for that declining resource. Alberta, which uses the natural gas to extract oil from the tar sands, is already seeing their production diminish. Conventional farmers tend to over fertilize (or they have until recently). It was safer to dump some extra on "just to make sure". The result was that all that fertilizer got into the water supply, and eventually made it's way to a river, then to the ocean. It causes algae blooms, which suck all the oxygen out of the water, creating huge dead zones (specifically in the Gulf of Mexico). Fertilizer also tends to kill off the microbes in the soil, and creates a chemical dependency: initial yields are good, but start to drop off, so more fertilizer is applied, etc, etc. I would recommend a couple of books: Stuffed and Starved - it looks at farmers living in poverty in the third world, and our over abundance here at home The Omnivore's Dilemma - he eats four meals, and traces where they come from. The first meal is from a fast food restaurant, and he traces back where all the ingredients came from. I highly recommend this book. The chapter on Polyface Farms is worth the price of the book by itself. One of his most interesting points is that you shouldn't need a food-journalist to figure out what you are eating, and yet you do. Hope that helps.
Honestly, I am not sure. Lawn-thatch is the result of chemical fertilizers (especially liquid ones) that kill off the microbes that break down the thatch. I would assume that anything high in nitrogen (including bone meal) would not be beneficial. That said, there is a difference between spot applications and an all-over-yard-dressing. A bit of bone meal under a rhoto is a huge deal. But if you get that composter going, and dump lots of coffee grounds, dried leaves, and kitchen scraps in there, you'll have a great, natural fertilizer.
