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Houseplant feed concentrate or ready to use

Updated: October 2026

You bought a litre because it looked like more feed than a 175 ml bottle, and it was gone before the month was out. That is the usual way people meet the choice between houseplant feed concentrate or ready to use. A litre on the label is not a litre of concentrate. This page puts the £3.99 Baby Bio drops beside the two pour-on litres in this amazon.co.uk set. The full grid is the [houseplant fertiliser comparison](/hub/fertiliser-soil-and-bark-mulch/fertiliser-for-houseplants). The Products Compared editorial team set this out on 21 October 2026 from the product listings. A qualifying purchase can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

You bought a litre because it looked like more feed than a 175 ml bottle, and it was gone before the month was out. That is the usual way people meet the choice between houseplant feed concentrate or ready to use.

Our top picks

Baby Bio Baby Bio Houseplant Food 175 ml

Best overall

Baby Bio Baby Bio Houseplant Food 175 ml
9.4/10about £3.99
View offer
Miracle-Gro Miracle-Gro Pour and Feed 1 L

Alternative

Miracle-Gro Miracle-Gro Pour and Feed 1 L
9.0/10about £5.00
View offer
Baby Bio Baby Bio Pour and Feed 1 L

Alternative

Baby Bio Baby Bio Pour and Feed 1 L
9.0/10about £5.81
View offer
On this page
  1. 1.Two different liquids
  2. 2.What you pay per watering
  3. 3.What UK reviews got wrong
  4. 4.Which format to take home

Two different liquids

Concentrate is the small, strong bottle. Baby Bio's indoor houseplant food, 175 ml at £3.99, tells you to add 5–10 drops to half a litre of water and pour that onto the soil. An item highlight says the bottle makes up to 70 litres. That is the seller's claim, not a jug we filled. Ready to use is a weak liquid you pour. Baby Bio Pour & Feed is 1 litre at £5.81 and the listing says you do not dilute it. Miracle-Gro Pour and Feed is the other ready litre, at £5.00. The 175 ml bottle claims dozens of litres of finished feed. The 1 litre bottle is one litre of finished feed. The best houseplant food page still ranks the drop bottle first for a mixed collection.

What you pay per watering

If the 70 litre highlight on the £3.99 concentrate holds, that is about 6 pence per made-up litre. A ready litre costs £5.00 or £5.81. The ready bottle can still be the right buy. It is not the cheaper buy per finished litre unless you waste the small bottle. Twelve pots empty a ready litre. The buying guide keeps the plant-type choice.
Baby Bio Baby Bio Houseplant Food 175 ml

Testsieger

Baby Bio Baby Bio Houseplant Food 175 ml
9.4/10about £3.99
View offer

What UK reviews got wrong

On Baby Bio Pour & Feed, buyers expected the concentrate and found a ready-diluted feed. They call it weak or watery and say it does not last. A pour-on is supposed to look thin. On Miracle-Gro Pour and Feed, 4.5 from 5,343 reviews, people thought it was concentrate and used the bottle in one session. If the title says concentrate, you add drops or millilitres to water. If the title says pour and feed, you do not expect 70 litres from a 1 litre bottle. The how to feed houseplants page is where the moist-compost step lives.

Which format to take home

Take the 175 ml Baby Bio concentrate home when you will count 5–10 drops into half a litre. Take a pour-on home when you have a few pots and you accept that £5.00 or £5.81 buys one litre. Prefer Baby Bio's pour-on when seaweed and houseplants are named on the listing. Prefer Miracle-Gro's when the lower sticker and the 5,343 reviews matter more. Do not take the £10.18 twin pack home to solve this question. For many plants, the concentrate. For a few plants and no measuring, the pour-on.

Common questions

Do I add water to Pour and Feed?
No. Baby Bio Pour & Feed is listed as a pre-made solution with no dilution, and Gates Garden Centre repeats that for the 1 litre bottle. Miracle-Gro Pour and Feed is treated as ready mixed in reviews, and the bullets give no dilution. You pour it on. Adding water makes it weaker than the label. Adding it into a concentrate recipe double-counts a product that was never a concentrate.
Why does the litre feel weaker than the small bottle?
Because it is already diluted, and the small bottle is not. Reviewers of Baby Bio's pour-on call it watery beside the 175 ml concentrate and mention a lighter colour. That is what a ready-to-use feed looks like. It should feel weaker in the hand. The strength you want at the roots comes from the dose on the label, not from a darker liquid. Chasing colour is how people overdose a pour-on or waste a concentrate.
How far does 175 ml of concentrate go?
The amazon highlight for the £3.99 Baby Bio says up to 70 litres of made-up feed. Treat that as a claim. At 5–10 drops per half litre, a 175 ml bottle is still many watering cans, which is why reviewers say the small bottle lasts. It does not go 70 litres if you pour the neat liquid or treble the drops. Morrisons' alternative line, half a cap in a litre every two weeks, uses the same bottle on a different rhythm. Follow one line.
How far does 1 litre of pour-on go?
One litre, poured. Gates claims up to 20 plants per litre for the Baby Bio pour-on, on a 7–14 day interval, onto moist compost. That is a retailer claim. A review of the Miracle-Gro litre describes most of the bottle used on about 15 plants at once, which is the opposite of stretching it. If you have more plants than a careful pour will cover, the litre is the wrong format. You will be buying another one.
Is the £10.18 twin pack a concentrate bargain?
No. It is titled as two 175 ml Baby-Bio bottles at £10.18, so each bottle is dearer than the £3.99 single if the title is what arrives. The listing also disagrees, with 350 ml in one field and 175 ml in another, and it has 74 reviews. There is no dose in the bullets. A twin pack can be convenient if you meant to buy two. It is not the cheap way to avoid a pour-on.

Related pages

Fertiliser for houseplants

Best houseplant food UK: mixed, measured or pour-on

Houseplant fertiliser buying guide: choose a format

How to feed houseplants: dose, moisture and season

Feed houseplants in winter: when to pause the bottle

Sources

Public UK and maker sources from the research digest, used for this page in October 2026. Prices, stars and review counts are from the nine amazon.co.uk listings captured on 21 October 2026. Listing ratio fields are not treated as NPK. The organic word on one Baby Bio title is not a certifier. A maker analysis is the maker's statement, not an independent UK lab test.

  1. RHS, houseplants growing guide (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  2. RHS, feeding plants (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  3. Gardeners' World, how to feed house plants (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  4. GOV.UK, manufacturing and marketing fertilisers (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  5. Fertilisers Regulations 1991 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  6. HSE, about pesticides (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  7. Westland Houseplant Feed (retrieved 21 October 2026)
  8. Morrisons, Baby Bio house plant food 175 ml (retrieved 21 October 2026)