AusBonsai

Hi guys. I’m new to bonsai, well never really had any plants or anything.
Anyway I think this might be the place to post this.

I recently potted a juniper in a pot I got from Bunnings.

About a week later it started to form this white stuff on the outside of the pot so I just wiped it off.
Within a couple of days it came back worse than before. It’s only on the outside and rim but hasn’t gone onto the soil. Yet.

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks, Kieran

Does it smell? It’s a crackle glaze pot which means the glaze isn’t sealing it so stuff can leech from the soil through it to get to the outside. It also means the ceramic part inside the glaze cracks also forms a rough surface/nidus for stuff to stick to. It also looks like a crystalline sort of thing to me which makes me think it’s a salt crystal of some kind from the water or stuff in your soil. I only ask if it smells as maybe it’s a fungus, but I don’t know. I’m interested to hear what others think!!

Thanks Beano.

Yeah from what I’ve found online I thought it might be salt or calcium from the water but that seems to usually be on the soil. Also there’s nothing on the other six plants I have so I was thinking it’s because of pot or fungus. I only root pruned and potted it a few weeks ago so any thoughts on if I should try a better pot.

My sense of smell is pretty bad but I don’t think it smells.

Are the other pots crackle glazed? If not are they just solid glaze?

There’s 2 I think are solid glazed. Just those tiny ones you buy when you first buy a “bonsai” for $15 before you realise it’ll be 100 years before they are anything.
I have a few terracotta pots, plastic pots and a porcelain one.

There are a few other glazed pots but nothing in them

Looks like salt from evaporating water. When we say 'salt' in hort that can mean any number of compounds, not just the NaCl salt we know as table salt. Many of the elements in fertiliser can form salts that crystalise as the water evaporates. Occasionally it forms on the surface of potting mix but more often on the pots. Looks like the moisture soaks through the porous pot and evaporates from the spaces between the glaze on this one.
Some salts are water soluble and will dissolve when you water but some are resistant and do not dissolve in water. You could try wiping with vinegar to see if that gets rid of it or when you repot the tree try soaking the pot in an acid cleaner - maybe CLR? while you do the roots (rise the pot well before putting a tree back into it)
Unfortunately this pot will probably always develop this just because it is the sort of pot that is conducive to this.

Thanks Shibui.
I’ll give the vinegar a try and hopefully it’ll help but I think I’ll have to re-pot.

I'd ask for my money back

Pots you get from Bunnings are cheap made and mass produced and have probably not been fired to Stoneware which leaves them porous generally pretty weak. I have had the same thing happen on a pot I got from Bunnings. I agree with shibui that it is salts being left behind. It may have come from your Fert or possibly from the clay used to make the pot. I no longer get any pots from Bunnings. I find they are over priced crap. Far better to go to a Bonsai Nursery that sells pots. They usually have a range of pots and those on the cheaper end are cheaper than Bunnings and better quality. Depending on where you live in Sydney, and if you are prepared to travel, Bonsai World on the central coast has a good range.

Double post.

Yes I won’t be buying from the big green shed again. This was just my introduction to bonsai so I’m happy to loose the $15 for the lesson learnt. I went up rays and got a new pot which cost around the same (can’t quite remember as I bought a bunch of pots and trees) new pot looks a lot better too. I’ll post a picture but please don’t judge my stick as it was a $5 purchase just to experiment with something cheap before I spent money on proper stock.