styrofoam as growing box

ripsgreentree

Denny and Desert-dwarf: Here is the picture that I wes telling you about. This airlayering has been in this box for two years and is still going strong the inside demintions of the box are 11in. square and 2in. deep. The tree is 15in. tall. If I were to pull the tree out of the box you would see that the roots have filled the entire square. It will be repotted this spring, if the box is still good I will use it again.

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ripsgreentree

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ripsgreentree

I am realy suprised that no one caught on to this growing tip. I have found many uses for styrofoam boxes in growing bonsai. The box pictured above is the top of a box that steaks were delivered in. It looks like this box is going to last for several more years and it is already three years old. This makes a great growing container and trainer while a potensai is waiting for the right bonsai pot. I will mention that there are several diffrent kinds of styrofoam and some of the lighter material does not hold up nearly as well as this heavy steak box has. It will be very interesting to see how the repotting goes this next spring......rips

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ripsgreentree

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TreeBay

One of the growers around here experimented with adding strips of styrofoam along the perimeter of the pot to keep the soil from heating up too much.

If you've ever touched the ceramic pot of a tree growing in full sun, you have an idea for how hot they can get, and while ceramic is a good insulator the dark color and heat capacity can get the pot warmed up to root stifling temperatures in the California sun in pretty short order.

In Japan, a nursery I visited would send a young apprentice out every few hours in the heat of summer to water the pots. Not the trees! He'd put water all over the benches and sprinkle water on the pots to keep them cool. If the roots get too hot the tree is unable to take up moisture, no matter how much is available in the soil.

Have you watered your pot lately? :

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jhill

I picked these up at an Anderson store close to my house. I believe they use these for pond pumps. They make fantastic training pots. The air prunes the roots. Works great.
Jhill

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TreeBay

Those are great. There was an article in bonsai today about using inexpensive bowl-shaped strainers (plastic collanders) for developing black pine The nurseryman never removed the smaller collander, but would just replant the whole thing in a larger size collander

I couldn't find a good picture of what I am talking about. Here is a collander, anyway. Imagine it is made of plastic, has no handles and a nice open mesh all over, just like your water gardening containers. Not just holes like this picture.

[img:bf51761e41]http://www.noblenet.org/everett/images/collander.gif[/img:bf51761e41]

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Bonsainut

Are you guys doing bonsai or cleaning house?

Just kidding, I have been using colanders on black pines ever since I saw that article in Bonsai today. Can you say 99cent store?

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Lethal Use of Farce

Tony

If you need something a little larger get a milk crate and line it with window screen. It certainly makes for fast draining soil.

Rene_Voortwist

Hi,

I recently bought a number of plastic washing bowls. (is that correct in English, these dreadful things you use to do the dishes in the evening ?) They were very cheap. They are made of transparent plastic, and I heard someone say that you should never have roots exposed to light. Now I hear you talk about using milk crates that should have the same problem. What do you think about it ?

René

Tony

Rene, The roots will grow through the screen and then be air pruned. That will cause them to branch further back and grow a compact root system. It works pretty well from what I've seen. I have some training pots that are transparent and I've never found it to be a problem.

Tony