Yard vs. large pots

DeanE

The soil in my yard is rock hard clay nothing really "takes off" in it.
Seedlings that pop up naturally from the trees around the yard do very poorly and are spindly little whips for the most part.Question is,I have a few trees I want to plant and leave for some years to thicken the trunks.Could I use very large pots and good old garden soil? Using a bonsai mixture would seem counter productive.My thought is that you want plenty of the organics in the dirt to give the tree nourishment so it will grow.Also I read of the dangers of overpotting but I think it's more for trees that are in training?
Would a large pot or box be a good idea? Given the size of the root structure
on my trees I think a big pot would be ok? I have one acer about a meter tall and a little hemlock about 12" and plan to get a Dawn Redwood(this one is problematic as it's about ten feet tall). Yes? No?
I don't see how the overlarge area would hurt.The idea is to get the tree
to maximum size.Eventually it would go into something smaller when root training begins.With due care would'nt they be ok in the giant pots?
Pain in the behind to move around I grant.I can't afford to get a backhoe and dredge up a giant bed and fill it with good soil.Any thoughts from you kind folks will be appreciated.Thanks. Dean

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JohnQuinn

I'd be surprised if no one in your area plants landscape trees without using a backhoe. I think it would be preferable to plant them in the ground, after digging a large enough hole and using traditional soil amendments to make it more desirable. Alternatively, you could build an above ground bed with a good soil mix.

There have been recent threads on grow beds and planting in the ground as well.

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Brent

I caution you against overpotting. I have written about this in soil articles at my website. You will get FASTER growth if you shift to larger pots progressively. You will have more control over the nebari too, since you can do a little surface root work every time you repot, usually every year or two. You won't really be gaining anything by dumping them in huge pots immediately, and you stand a lot to lose, including an enormous amount of soil mix if it collapses before root colonization takes place. You may have to dismantle your pots, remove and replace all the soil if it fails. By shifting progressively, you can save space, use a higher grade of soil, deal with smaller pots, get better growth, better roots, and you can prune heavily when needed without upsetting the water balance significantly.

The other thing you can do is to let the roots escape the pots. I have grown thousands of trees like this. Amazingly, even really crappy soil will work, the roots explore at their own pace and have a reservoir of good soil to count on to keep the upper roots alive and healthy. Gravelly soil does work better than heavy clay, but the species also makes a big difference. Dawn redwoods will grow in almost anything and will explode using the escape method, and you won't need a backhoe to dig them out either. Japanese maples aren't going to grow very fast no matter what you do.

Brent
EvergreenGardenworks.com
see our blog at http://BonsaiNurseryman. typepad.htm

darrellw

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I've been meaning to ask a question about the escape technique. I have a bunch of 2 year old Zelkova seedlings, currently in 6" pots. I want to grow them out with the escape technique, but at their current size a 1 gallon is probably the next logical size up. Is that suffcient for the escape technique, or should I be waiting until I can get them up into something larger?

-Darrell

randyclark

Forgive me Darrell... I don't know very much about bonsai... What, exactly, is "The escape technique?"

Randy

BrianBay9

Dean,

How about a raised bed? Can be constructed cheaply with railroad ties or 4x4's to contain a load of better soil on top of your hard pan.

Brian

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saint

I would side with Brent on this one, bump up in sizes progressively each year. In the tropics you could possibly get away with going straight into a big pot but I'm not sure this would work in a temperate climate. My reading (and Brent) seems to suggest that it wouldn't.

In your potting you would want to use a bonsai mix with slightly more organic material than you would put in a normal bonsai pot. Normal soil will hold water and possibly give you root rot for your trouble.

I've seen the grow bed idea work really well, as well as the "escape" technique, however you have to be sure that the tree will survive been cut off from it's "escape" root system when you are ready. Not a problem for ficus, but other trees may be touchier.

Good luck.

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Pill_Man

From Evergreen Garden Works, Brent Walston:
"In the escape technique, you allow the roots to escape out the drain holes of the nursery can
and into the earth. Continue watering through the can. When it comes time to harvest the tree,
simply cut the roots at the can (which still contains an intact root ball)."

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DeanE

Thank you all for the response.The escape method sounds good for the acer and hemlock. the Dawn R. however has a pretty big bagged rootball and the raised bed idea seems good there.(It is about ten feet tall as of now).I plan to move from my current house in about a year so I don't want the ground planted trees to be a big hassle.The raised bed might be a good route.I would just have to plan the timing for removal of the tree from the bed a little ahead.Thanks again. Dean

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