Dear Kathy, A number of people in the past have reported losing their bulbs from Osmocote dumping too much at once. Uli had some horror stories about his Hippeastrums and I think Diana Chapman reported some sad results too, but she can report that herself. Uli is currently off line. There is a time release fertilizer called nutricote that isn't supposed to be temperature sensitive. I've tried that since I live in an area with excessive rainfall and I suspect that any fertilizer I add to the soil is leached out rather quickly. At the end of the season the pellets still seemed hard so they obviously are not breaking down quickly like osmocote making me wonder if they were simply decorative or if they were releasing anything at all. They were easy to use however. We discussed fertilizers in these archives: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/old.php/… I bundled together some of the comments on fertilizers from the IBS forum in the past and I'll send that to you privately later today when I have more time. Having paid attention to what has been written about fertilizers in the past on IBS and our forum I think there is not a lot of agreement. I've tried different things and would be hard pressed to say what worked the best. It is complicated by what your medium is, how much water your plants are getting, what your temperatures are and what kind of bulbs you are growing. There probably isn't a one formula fits all. In South Africa on this last trip people were convinced that fertilizing was really helping. Gordon Summerfield's advice on growing bulbs and feeding is in this archive: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/old.php/… Part of the problem seemed that a number of them were using a new batch of sand that probably was very low in nutrients and maybe minerals too and their bulbs that they had done really well with before were not responding. Adding fertilizers perked them up. I know a number of people who swear by dilute miracle grow with every watering. Will Ashburner who was a participant in the IBS forum in the past said something that has stuck in my brain. He suspected getting your medium correct was more important than what kind of fertilizer you used. He stressed a medium with the correct air filled porosity. I hope this helps. Mary Sue