Your feeding routines

In all the years I've been learning how to care for houseplants, fertilizing has remained a mystery and a source of anxiety: am I fertilizing too much, too little, using the wrong kind, the wrong strength, etc...?

I just realized that I shouldn't have been fertilizing year round except for maybe my African Violet and Moth Orchid that grow and bloom nearly all year, and that I wasn't diluting the fertilizer enough for how often I was feeding (every watering).

Now I'm stressed about what other mistakes I've been making with regards to fertilizing. How do all of you feed your plants? I'm really interested in hearing all about your routines, what you use, and how often you use them. There's got to be a worry-free way to do this!

Have your plants been healthy and stayed alive? If so then you can't be doing too bad! LOL The fertilizer package is always the first place to start as far as amount and frequency, I would never use a higher concentration than what they say on the bottle, and if you want to use it more frequently than what they say on the label then you need to dilute it more than what they direct. If you're worried, you can switch to a controlled release fertilizer--since they release slowly it's a lot harder to damage the plant even if you do accidentally use too much. And since they release for a long time, you don't have to think about it more than a few times a year.

For liquids use half strength every other week.

Thanks for your replies! I really like the idea of slow release fertilizer. Are you talking about the granular kind or the spikes?

I use spikes twice a year, in spring and mid-summer. I also sometimes add granular fertilizer to flowering types. Seems to work fine, as long as plants are repotted every year or two into a fresh mix.

I prefer the granular kind, I've heard some bad things about the spikes but of course can't remember what exactly was bad about them off the top of my head. But the granular ones work well and I think they're more economical too, those spikes are pretty expensive given the number of uses you get out of a package of them.

My mam is generally green fingered, and she watered and fetrilized when she remembered. She never had a routine and her plants always did fine (except when I was looking after them), although all of my plants are doing fine now :-) and I fetrilized them according to my mams schedule of when I remember - so long as plants get water and look healthy I don't think it really matters to fetrilize them so much. I have orchids and I try and fetrilize them more regularly; except I have those on a watering schedule so its a bit easier to tell when I need to remembe to fertilize them.

I do one quarter to half strength every other watering and once a month in winter. If the plant is resting and NOT growing no fertilizer.