An alternative to wood growing boxes: terracotta?

ripsgreentree

Old Mr. Crow: I think that there is one more aspect of wooden growing boxes that you have overlooked. The dementions of a good growing box will be 24"X24"X4" or 24"X24"X6" this gives a plant four square feet of growing aeria with only four or six inches of depth. Your nebari expands like a tree in the ground with none of the root problems that you will find in the ground. When it is time to trim down into a bonsai container it is very simple and few or no large root cuts to cause trama to the tree. In the teracotta pot you are still going to get the circled up root ball that is always a problem in root pruning bonsai. I do have one application for teracotta pots and that is for keeping bald cypress in water, nothing works better for this. Well that is my two cents for what it is worth.
ripsgreentree

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ripsgreentree

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Carl_Bergstrom

Point taken, Rip. I suppose the terracotta pots are better for trees that have already attained the desired caliper, such as the juniper and the hemlock. With them, I'm just working on the roots and canopy, so I don't mind so much if I have to disturb the roots with a yearly repotting. This is probably not as well suited for trees such as the linden that still have some serious growing to do.

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In love with trees

ripsgreentree

Old Mr. Crow: It sounds like you know exactly where you are heading with your trees so good growing and most important injoy.......ripsgreentree

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ripsgreentree

It requires an open hand to give and to recieve.

What about plastic drainage trays? Some of those I saw earlier at Home Depot were several inches deep - and wide enough to house a couple small seedlings. They're plastic, so I see no reason why you can just drill 2 dozen holes in them and cover the bottom with a drainage screen.

Carl_Bergstrom

That could work too. I like terracotta because it breathes - and in fact actually draws moisture out of the outer reaches of the soil, the area that is most likely to stay soggy in our Seattle climate.

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Will_Heath

So Carl, can you update us on the use of Terra Cotta as training pots?


Will

Carl_Bergstrom

Sure, Will!

I have a dozen or so trees in large growing boxes, and I continue to use terra cotta as a cheap and easy alternative to growing boxes for trees that have already achieved the desired caliper. I use them particularly often for Acer palmatum cultivars; I simply don't have the room to put all of those into growing boxes! Anyway, this approach works well for me. Perhaps because we don't get hard freezes, the pots last for years here.

(As an aside, the conifers shown in the pictures above have gone by the by, in my efforts to reduce quantity in favor of quality. The linden is relaxing in a large growing box. I no longer use the half-organic soil shown in those pictures.)

Below is a picture of a recent piece of stock (A. palmutum `mikawa yatsubusa', just as it is first leafing out in April), growing in terra cotta.

Best regards,
Carl

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pootsie

In my own humble (and sometimes humbling) experience, they work very well for Ohio weather (at least cleveburg, we'll see about columbusvilletown down the road)

IN cleveburg, I never had to worry too much about sucking away the moisture, since the place is basically a cold-weather swamp.

I have noticed, though, that they tend to fall apart after a couple years, or crack easily in freezing weather. Not a big deal for cheap-as-free training pots though, whose life does not need to be long for my needs.

pootsie

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Will_Heath

Interesting. You use these in a like manner and for the same reasons that I use pond baskets it would seem.

Do you use your regular mix in these and is it true that terra cotta will dry out the mix quicker than other materials? Do you find that your roots will circle in these and do you get many fiberous roots?

Thanks, I am always curious about different techniques and practices even though Terra Cotta and Michigan winters are not friends.

Will