Homemade fertilizer for areca palm [Caring Tips]

Areca palm is one of the favorite plants when it comes to aesthetically enhancing a space indoor or outdoor. It provides a nice tropical look to the space it is kept in no matter if you live in California, Florida, or San Francisco.

Areca palms can grow up to 30 feet if taken care of by providing nutrients to the plants. But sometimes these lush green plants start to turn yellow due to many reasons. One of the most important reasons is the lack of nutrients.

You can try to fill this lack in two ways. By either providing artificial fertilizers to your plant or providing homemade fertilizers to your plant. Either way, your plant is going to gain nutrients but their long-term impact is different.

Homemade fertilizers are much better for your plant and can be made easily with minimum ingredients. So let us see how to make homemade fertilizer for areca palm.

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Benefits of using homemade fertilizer for areca palm

But first, let us see why we should use homemade fertilizers. Here are some of the benefits of using homemade fertilizers for areca palm.

1. Benefits For the Areca Palm plant

Artificial or synthetic fertilizers burn or damage the areca palm plants in the long run. However homemade fertilizers make the plants long-term healthy and lustrous.

2. Benefit for soil

Homemade organic fertilizers improve the structure of soil and stimulate beneficial soil microorganisms that in turn not only improve soil quality but also make it porus.

These microbes break down the organic fertilizer and make nutrients soluble for the areca palm plant to absorb faster.

3. Benefit for environment

Generally, artificial fertilizers are responsible for making the soil pollute, and hence damage the soil and the water bodies, and aquatic life as these fertilizers get washed away.

However, the homemade organic fertilizers keep nature in its natural form and help in avoiding the environment in turn keeping areca palm safe for a longer period of time.

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4. Pocket friendly

Homemade fertilizers can be made from things found at home and thus saves you money. For example, most of the kitchen wastes and peels of vegetables that are rich in nutrients are used to make fertilizer and hence save lots of money.

Here are some types of recipes that you can use to make homemade fertilizers and make your areca palm grow even faster.

Best Homemade Fertilizer for Areca Palm

1. Homemade Fertilizer 1

A. Ingredients and mixture- For making the first type of homemade fertilizer for areca palm you will need the following ingredients-

  • Readymade Houseplant food
  • Wet vegetable kitchen waste
  • 1 tablespoon of Epsom salt and
  • 1 liter of water

Take these ingredients and mix them well together to form a mixture and your homemade fertilizer is ready to be used. In addition, you can also add the following for better nutrients such as Milk and Eggshells.

B. Nutrients– Some of the vital plant nutrients that are there are in this mixture are-

  • Magnesium
  • Sulfate
  • Potassium
  • Calcium
  • Nitrogen building protein

How to Use- you can use this mixture once a month and put them at the roots and the firming soil for the best results.

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2. Homemade Fertilizer 2

A. Ingredients and mixture- For making the second type of homemade fertilizer for areca palm any of the following ingredients will be required-

  • Cottonseed meal
  • Feather meal
  • Soybean meal
  • Bat guano

Kitchen waste like peels of beet, spinach, kelp, leafy green vegetables, and whole grains. To this mixture, you can add an equal mix of all these items and mix them all together. In addition, you can also add Orange rind or Dried oranges.

B. Nutrients– In this mixture, some of the vital plant nutrients that are there are in this mixture are-

  • Manganese
  • Potassium
  • Phosphorus
  • Nitrogen
  • Iron 

How to Use- Let it sit for about an hour and then use it in your areca palm.

3. Homemade Fertilizer 3

A. Ingredients and mixture- For making the third type of homemade fertilizer for areca palm you can use the following ingredients-

  • 5 cups of seed meal
  • 1 cup of bone meal
  • 1 cup of dolomite lime
  • 1 cup of kelp meal
  • Used tea leaves.

Now mix these ingredients well for about 30 minutes to mix well and then in addition you can also add the following for better consistency if the mixture dries up the Black coffee concoction.

B. Nutrients– This mixture will consist of the following nutrients-

  • Phosphorus
  • Potash
  • Nitrogen

How to Use- now you can use this mixture and keep it stored for a year easily.

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Organic gardening is not only a great way to save and protect the environment but it is also a great way to grow your areca palm in a great way with lots of loaded nutrients.

Guide to making Homemade Fertilizer for Areca Palm

We have listed the top 3 homemade fertilizers to be used for making your own homemade fertilizer and using it for your areca palm. However, we are also giving you a guide so that you can use it to make your own variation of fertilizer.

Here are the things that you should keep in mind while making homemade fertilizers for areca palm-

1. It should contain macronutrients-

When we are making any fertilizer we must keep in mind that it should be rich in macronutrients. Macronutrients means those nutrients that the plant needs the most in amount. For areca palm the macronutrients are

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  • Potassium – this nutrient is responsible for making the roots of areca palm grow strong and also helps in improving photosynthesis in areca palms.
  • Nitrogen – are you also fond of the lush green foliage of Areca palm? If yes, then the macronutrient nitrogen is the key. It provides foliage to Areca palms that are lush and green.
  • Phosphorus – This helps areca palm to grow well.

Hence you should use ingredients that are rich in macronutrients

2. It should contain micronutrients-

Micronutrients are the nutrients that are required by the areca palm but in fewer amounts. They are the elements like-

  • Zinc
  • Copper
  • iron, etc.

Hence add the ingredients that have these elements.

3. It should have secondary nutrients-

Secondary nutrients fall between the macro and micronutrients. They are

  • Sulfur
  • Calcium
  • Magnesium

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can we Add eggshells to Homemade Fertilizer for Areca Palm?

Areca palm requires many kinds of macronutrients and secondary nutrients. We can add eggshells to the homemade fertilizers since it is rich in calcium and potassium. Hence for homemade fertilizers eggshells are good for areca palm.

2. Is milk a good addition to Homemade Fertilizer for areca palm?

Talking about nutrients, we can’t skip milk. Milk is rich in nutrients not only for us humans but also for plants. Milk is known to contain a whole lot of beneficial proteins, sugars, and vitamins B. These are good for the human body as well as plants. Hence yes you can add milk to your homemade fertilizer and it is good for areca palms.

It not only provides areca palm with lots of nutrients but it also improves the crop yield and overall health of the plant. You can also water your areca palm with milk once in a while. You can add milk to the foliage of the Areca palm or even to the roots. It will promote areca palm growth and better its health as well.

3. How often do I fertilize my areca palm?

This is a very important question as to how often you should fertilize your areca palm. Homemade fertilizers for areca palm are a great source of providing nutrients that has many benefits of their own like preserving soil structure and quality, maintaining the health of the plant on a long-term basis, preserving the environment, and lastly being pocket friendly.
 
But does that mean that we should fertilize our areca palm every other day? Not at all. Fertilizing is good for maintaining the plant health but over-fertilizing is something that can deteriorate the areca palm plant as well. You should fertilize the Areca palm every spring and once every month.
 
When you fertilize the areca palm in spring it will ensure that the areca palm is getting the required nutrients even in summers after spring. In addition, since spring and summers are the growing seasons for Areca Palm, they need more nutrients during that time and it will be utilized by the plant instead of just sitting in the soil.
 
However, you should not add fertilizers to Areca palms during winter because that is not the growing season for them. If you add any kind of fertilizer to the areca palm in writers it will simply sit in the soil and will not be of much value to the plant. Hence using homemade fertilizers for the Areca Palm is good but we should also know when to add them and when not.

4. Is tea good for Areca Palm growth?

Yes, you can use used tea leaves in your homemade fertilizer and it will benefit your plant growth. Dried tea leaves are said to contain 0.25% potassium, 0.24% phosphorus, and 4.4% nitrogen. These nutrients are macronutrients and are very much required for areca palm. Hence tea is good for areca palm growth.

5. What month do I Fertilize Areca Palm?

If you live in parts like California, Florida, San Francisco, etc, you should fertilize the areca palm from March to June. This is because the plant has maximum growth in spring and these parts have spring during those times. Hence March is the best month to fertilize your areca palm. However, you can fertilize it till June as well since that is the growing season.

Homemade fertilizer for areca palm
Homemade fertilizer for areca palm

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Conclusion

Areca palm can grow up to 30 feet if well taken care of. To take care of the nutrients of the plants you can add them by using artificial fertilizers or homemade fertilizers for areca palm that are organic in nature. Homemade fertilizers have many benefits on the areca palm, the soil, and the environment as well, as we discussed.

We also talked about the recipes that we can use to make homemade fertilizers. You can refer to them and provide nutrients to your areca palm. Or you can also try to create your own homemade fertilizer for areca palm by following the guide to making areca palm fertilizers as discussed above.

You can also refer to the time when you need to give fertilizers to the plant irrespective of whether you live in California, Florida, or any other place.

We hope that you find the content useful as we have tried to give as much information as we thought you might need for making homemade fertilizers for areca palm. If you have any other questions feel free to add them in the comments below and we will be glad to help you out.