Hi All, Crazy busy at my little succulent nursery here in Maine. I plan to sell semps and jovi's at an organic growers fair in the fall and am trying to put some good growth on my plants without the slow release fertilizer I had been using. I started them off with bone meal. Any input to when to fertilize them again or with what, would be helpful. Thanks!

Could you use a seaweed based fertilizer or one with bat guano?

I will try seaweed as I have a bit of it leftover from veggie seedlings. Thanks Bev.

Good luck! and if you have time, any chance of pics of the big mature "piggy" semps going "off to market" in the fall?

What are "piggy" semps?

Edit: or is it just a farming reference, as in "pigs going to market"?

JC, that's why I used the quote marks to mean the farming reference which you figured out in under 2 minutes...

Hehe, yeah I figured that was probably what you meant a few seconds after I hit "Finished" on the original post.
I left it just in case there was something I could learn.

I may try before and after shots. Will try feeding them with different things to test the outcome. All good ideas. we'll see if I follow through.

I would love to see the results from you testing Mark.

I would be very interested to see testing results too!

@markb. I'm a semp newbie and reviving this thread. I'd love to hear what you know now about growing semps with fertilizers.

I did put a mixture of old straw and rabbit droppings on mine - got it from a guy who raised rabbits. It smelled rather bad for couple of days but my semps and roses seemed to like it.

Karen, There was a trend toward using the organics (seaweed, bat guano, etc) when I was living in NM and I got introduced to using seaweed. Wanting to grow slow-growing succulents at the time, I thought liquid seaweed being low in N-P-P would be a good try for my slow-growing sempervivums. I was also told that the liquid seaweed could also be used a s foliar spray.

Thanks, Bev. I look into getting some. Have you used the Bonide horticultural spray on your semps? It is supposed to work for mealies, aphids, whiteflies, etc. I got it mostly for the other things in the greenhouse, but think it might work on the last of the mealies I'm trying to eradicate. I couldn't throw the plants out.

I'm not a fan of insect sprays. I went out and got the Bonide Systemic House Plant Insect Control Granules because I found these selling points more to my liking:
Systemic houseplant insect granular
Convenient, ready-to-use granules provide effective, long lasting insect control for 8 weeks
Excellent indoor no odor, no spray, no mess formula

In regards to my handling mealies, in addition to my previous post of using Q-tips and alcohol I gauge an infestation as either manageable or not manageable. I throw the plant out when it's the second and I try to be preventative when I pot up new plants by using the above product when there might or might not be an infestation.

I went with the plain horticultural spray. It's mostly mineral oil. I was afraid the systemic would kill the earthworms living in my pots and raised beds.

You do have to be careful that the bees don't have access to the blooms.

It said to avoid spraying blooms for sure. We need our bees.

It's the systemic treatments that I was referring to. Anything insect that eats any part of the plant would be killed. It even travels into the nectar and pollen. That's why I don't use

Yes, that is true. I was worried about my worms, but the other pollinators would be killed too.