symbiotic1
Mame
I've seen a lot on here about the use of colanders and pond baskets for developing trees and it's convinced me to use them while I repot my developing trees. I have a few questions about using them that I didn't notice answers to in other threads. Sorry for the long questions!
- Are there any trees that should NOT go in colanders/baskets because they need more moisture in the soil and a normal plastic pot or even one of the breathable fabric pots might do better?
- Would one only move a tree to a colander/basket once the desired trunk girth or development stage is reached? Normally it seems the advice is to put a tree in the ground, a larger pot, or stack in a bigger pot to get fast trunk growth. It seems like it would be difficult to provide enough space in a colander for the roots to support rapid trunk thickening for a taller or sumo tree vs putting the tree in the ground, a mixing tray or a 10/15 gal container. What has been others experience with this?
- Pond baskets are more close in size to nursery pots but since colanders are much more shallow, how would you make sure to have the right size? For example, if a tree was coming from a 5 gallon pot and the roots had colonized most of that pot, how big should the colander be for it? Most of my trees are coming from black nursery pots that are much more narrow and deep than any of the colanders. Even though the colander soil would be free draining, is there a big risk of overpotting issues if the colander was too wide for the initial rootball? I also don't want the colander to end up being too small that it dries up too quickly and the roots are damaged, especially considering the extreme, dry summer heat here in SoCal.
- Are there any trees that should NOT go in colanders/baskets because they need more moisture in the soil and a normal plastic pot or even one of the breathable fabric pots might do better?
- Would one only move a tree to a colander/basket once the desired trunk girth or development stage is reached? Normally it seems the advice is to put a tree in the ground, a larger pot, or stack in a bigger pot to get fast trunk growth. It seems like it would be difficult to provide enough space in a colander for the roots to support rapid trunk thickening for a taller or sumo tree vs putting the tree in the ground, a mixing tray or a 10/15 gal container. What has been others experience with this?
- Pond baskets are more close in size to nursery pots but since colanders are much more shallow, how would you make sure to have the right size? For example, if a tree was coming from a 5 gallon pot and the roots had colonized most of that pot, how big should the colander be for it? Most of my trees are coming from black nursery pots that are much more narrow and deep than any of the colanders. Even though the colander soil would be free draining, is there a big risk of overpotting issues if the colander was too wide for the initial rootball? I also don't want the colander to end up being too small that it dries up too quickly and the roots are damaged, especially considering the extreme, dry summer heat here in SoCal.