If fertilizing is a confusing topic for you, certainly was for me when I started, granted

I was growing hydroponically, so you really had to have your fertilizer on lockdown.

What we have, John, climates back on the show, the director of gardens at the San Diego

Botanic Garden.

I know John, we've talked about a little bit of fertilizer tips here on the show this

week, the weekly, weekly idea, but why don't we zoom back out and kind of give an overview

much like we did in our conversation about water?

Sure.

Well, fertilizing for everything in your garden is very important, but particularly for

orchids, you know, they can't get up and walk around and go find their own food.

So they depend 100% on us to bring them what they need.

And so there's also, in the media that orchids are growing in, there's absolutely nothing

there.

It's a completely non-broken down type of substrate.

And so it hasn't really been available as a nutrient.

It's basically just a sterile mix.

So it's really important to get them the food they want.

So one of the things that I'd like to really familiarize people with is that if you look

at a bag of fertilizer or a gallon container, whatever it is you're shopping for, there

are three numbers and you really need to know those three numbers when it comes to fertilizer.

The first number is for nitrogen and the second number is for phosphorus and then the third

number is for potassium or potash.

...