Seasons Changing - Late Tree Feeding

[Firstflush]

Im in soucthern CA. We don’t get a ton of season changes here. The evenings and nights have chilled off a bit. Some leaves changing color and dropping.

Do you all do a heavy or light feed late season to send them off into fall/winter proper? Just saw Bjorns new video, He likes to feed his trees before the major season changes. What’s your opinion?

 

[Kodama]

Since my trees are in development I do a heavy feed in the fall to prep for spring. As I understand it.. the fertilizer is but a nutrition supplement that can be like gas pedals that influence the type of growth needed.

 

[Kodama]

In other words that I now echo....it depends!

 

[Paradox]

Depending on the temperature, I feed until beginning to mid Oct the same feeding regimen I use all year.

If your trees are healthy, they don't need any special feeding to prepare for winter.

When the temperature cools, they already know what to do

 

[Scorpius]

I'll fertilze my deciduous trees till their leaves drop and my conifers till its reliably below 50 during the day.

 

[Shibui]

There is no point fertilizing after leaves turn or drop. Unless sap is flowing up the tree it cannot take up water (and therefore soluble nutrients) through the roots so any late fertilizer will just be wasted and washed out of the pots over the coming weeks.
The time to fertilize is a few weeks BEFORE change of colour but you should be doing regular fert applications through summer so the real question should be when to stop rather than when to give more.

 

[eugenev2]

Im in soucthern CA. We don’t get a ton of season changes here. The evenings and nights have chilled off a bit. Some leaves changing color and dropping.

Do you all do a heavy or light feed late season to send them off into fall/winter proper? Just saw Bjorns new video, He likes to feed his trees before the major season changes. What’s your opinion?

All above provided valid points, but speaking from a point of view of someone that has only discovered in the last 2 years the importance of applying fertilizer during autumn, i've noticed a massive difference in spring growth on my trees in comparison to following the normal gardening logic of fertilizing only during spring and summer.
But i've also recently read a number of articles of fertilizing with purpose, i cannot find the exact article at the moment, but below is a few examples on the topic. But basically they indicate that your fertilizing regime should be based on the development phase of your tree in conjunction with the season and your specific climate, a tree in refinement might not be fertilized at all during autumn for example, where as a in development tree might be fertilized heavily. Also i see your usda zone is 10B and might be fairly similar to my own ie, the lowest day/night time winter temperatures this year was 16C/5C respectively, which is relatively hot and could mean certain trees don't go completely dormant and these tree might require fertilizer through out the winter, like some of mine.

Example articles

The Art of Fertilizing

Learn the basics of fertilizing your bonsai trees by reading this informative article written by Terry Erasmus. Includes an introduction to nutrient deficiencies and how to spot them. Various types of fertilizers are discussed, their benefits explained. Various methods of application are described.

www.bonsaitree.co.za

How to fertilize bonsai - Bonsai Tonight

Learn to design a fertilizing regimen for your bonsai. This is the third part of a series focusing on concepts to be mastered by beginning bonsai students.

bonsaitonight.com

Fall is for fertilizer - Bonsai Tonight

A few weeks ago I was struck by yellow foliage on a number of my young pines. After thinking about it for a moment, I came to the conclusion that I hadn't

bonsaitonight.com

 

[Hbhaska]

There is no point fertilizing after leaves turn or drop. Unless sap is flowing up the tree it cannot take up water (and therefore soluble nutrients) through the roots so any late fertilizer will just be wasted and washed out of the pots over the coming weeks.
The time to fertilize is a few weeks BEFORE change of colour but you should be doing regular fert applications through summer so the real question should be when to stop rather than when to give more.

Spot on, Neil. Thank you

 

[BrianBay9]

If it's green, I feed as usual. Stop when they drop. So my evergreen trees get fed all year. But then, I don't really have a dormant season.

 

[cishepard]

Bjorns new video addressing autumn fertilizing: