I recently bought a Trident Maple Bonsai and plan on using a slow release fertilizer that had great reviews and seemed to be effective. I am supposed to apply 1 oz of fertilizer but am a bit confused because my bonsai already came with small green pellet fertilizer so I'm unsure of what to do.

Do I remove the green pellets it came with and use my fertilizer?

Do I leave the fertilizer that it already came with, and if so, when do I know it's time to apply new fertilizer?

Be carefull with slow release fertilizer. If it is similar to a product like osmocote you should not use it. It is temperature dependent, and as such can release a large amount of fertiliser (=salt) in one go.

You will have to check whether the green stuff is not empty. I find some of these products do not actually fall apart and stay in the soil for a very long time.

I am using Bonsai Fertilizer "Controlled-Released Formula Long Term Enrichment" from Perfect Plants on Amazon. It has a balance of 18-6-8 which I heard is a good general balance. I included an image below:

Do you think this would work well with my trident maple? I live in the Bay Area in California so the weather here is usually sunny.

Also, I just checked and the green pellets still have stuff inside of them so when will I know to replace them?

Something else that may matter is how the pellets are attractive to birds and rodents. I have some pellets which I am going to stop using outdoors because they disappear. I don't think they dissolve that fast, and I know the dog is strongly attracted to them, so I will bet the squirrels and other rodents are enjoying them tremendously. Or, maybe, birds.

julian32122 wrote: I am using Bonsai Fertilizer "Controlled-Released Formula Long Term Enrichment" . It has a balance of 18-6-8 which I heard is a good general balance.

Well, I use Osmocote Plus and Basecote (the green little balls).
BUT...
I put them inside tea bags, so I can control positioning, if I want I can easily take them out (intense heat, for instance), AND this way the balls are not so attractive to vermin in general.
It works for me.

:woohoo: