Ground Planting in Colanders

[Ray M]

The results look great, I notice that one of the replies you got referred to using Bonsai mix in the colander.
Two questions arise;
1 Do you also use Bonsai mix in the original planting
2 Presume that the Bonsai mix and garden soil have different rates of drainage and drying, if this is the case do you need water the colander more heavily than the surrounding soil.
Will appreciate your comments, Rgds Kerry

Hi Kerry,
In the colander I plant the tree in a good quality bonsai mix. The garden soil will depend on the quality of soil you have available where the colander is going to be planted. If you are concerned with the garden soil, prepare the soil by digging a bag or two of good potting mix into the soil.

Watering - I water the colander and the surrounding soil the same. I have never had any problems with the differences in the bonsai mix and garden soil.

I hope this all make sense.

Regards Ray

[Kerry]

Thanks Ray makes perfect sense, I have started taking my trees out of plastic pots and planting them into mesh sided wooden pots that I have made to get them ready for ramification development and better root structure.
I had read a thread on this type of pot and it's merits in developing a better root structure so will be interested to see how it goes.
Your method for growing in the ground in colanders seems to be ideal in developing better trunks while maintaining a good root structure.
Very impressive so I will be trying your method this year with trees that need growing on.
Thanks for your help
Best regards Kerry

[Neli]

I repotted today some trees that were in planter bags...Not too sure what I was doing, but managed to cut my finger with the grinder. ( I was cutting roots)
Will post pictures tomorrow...too handicaped today.

[Beano]

Angle grinder? Those things are a bloody hazard.

I got some colanders from crazy Clark's last week, planted some seeds in them. They aren't quite the colanders I wanted but they were 99c so I figured they'd do.

[Neli]

Hi Ray...this is to show you how the roots look inside two packets. One is old and the other is younger, but they both had roots escaped in the ground...unfortunately only from the bottom.
The bigger one had some big tap roots which were not removed in the beginning, and that is how I cut my finger removing them, but the smaller one had no tap roots.
It was planted in ordinary soil.It took me 3 hours to untangle the roots, and repot it, since it has been in that packet for over 4 yars.
The lesson is: Bonsai soil+ lateral holes for the roots to escape, so that it is not so compacted inside.
The smaller one had a very nice ball of fine roots and it took 5 min to comb the roots...It has been there for 3 years, in ordinary soil. It had to tap root and no big roots.

[Ray M]

Hi Neli,
Thanks for showing the photos. Hope your finger heals up quickly. One of the great things with planting in colanders is that there is plenty of escape paths for the roots. As you know, if the roots grow in a pot and the roots hit the inside walls of the pot they will naturally wind around inside the pot. This can certainly create a job when you try to sort out the roots.

Regards Ray

[Neli]

Hi Ray, I had no roots going around in the packets but I do get them in pots. The problem was that there were just too many fine roots like glued together...not glued but like next to each other and I did not want to break them...so it took time.

[Graeme]

A tile, or some similar hard surface, placed under the tree root ball will further prohibit the downward growth of the root system when planting in a colander. I often use a piece of lino instead of a tile. It's cheaper, easier to cut to shape and doesn't take up as much space in the container.

[Josh]

A tile, or some similar hard surface, placed under the tree root ball will further prohibit the downward growth of the root system when planting in a colander. I often use a piece of lino instead of a tile. It's cheaper, easier to cut to shape and doesn't take up as much space in the container.

I'm using CD's. great size and work well. All those old fishing and 4wding dvd's are finally coming in handy I saw an article ages ago where someone planted a small tree with tap root through the hole in the middle of the cd. They then planted it in the ground. The tree powered on because of the tap root but when it reached the diameter of the hole put small feeder roots out around the top of the cd cause the base to flare. When ready they simply lifted the tree, cut off the tap root and had a good tree with base flare and strong growth.

Josh.

[Graeme]

Yep, done that once or twice myself (prefer Abba CD's ) and it sure does work. I did mine with Ficus seedlings.

[jadecuphey87]

I'll be definately heading to the cheap shop. Great idea ray.

[Neli]

A tile, or some similar hard surface, placed under the tree root ball will further prohibit the downward growth of the root system when planting in a colander. I often use a piece of lino instead of a tile. It's cheaper, easier to cut to shape and doesn't take up as much space in the container.

Graeme, I planted this from cuttings, wanted to make a hedge...that was before my bonsai days...so they had tap roots.

[coh]

Hello all,

This is my first post on this forum. I found this discussion referenced on another forum (bonsainut.com) and wanted to ask a couple of questions. As you note, members on that forum in general believe that planting the colander in the ground defeats the purpose of using the colander. In their view, having the sides of the colander exposed to the air creates "air pruning". When the roots get near the side of the colander, instead of diving down and around like they do in a standard nursery pot, they die off (due to the dry air). The theory is that this maintains a desirable fibrous mass of mainly feeder roots within the pot.

My belief (and it seems to be backed up by this thread), is that if you plant the colander in the ground, the air pruning effect is obviously stopped and roots can grow out through the colander into the soil. I would also think that some of the roots would grow down and around within the colander, creating some circling roots. However, I've never tried this...so I'm wondering what you guys find when you examine the root systems inside the colanders after they've been buried for a while.

Has anyone done any side-by-side comparisons with colanders both above and in the ground? I would think planting the colanders in the ground and lifting periodically would result in faster growth but perhaps not as good of a close, fibrous root system. People posting on the other forum don't agree but haven't tried both methods, as far as I can tell.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer some additional insights.

Chris
New York/USA

While perusing another forum, a thread about growing in colanders came up. They didn't seem to like the ground growing idea (their loss) but were big fans of just growing in colanders for development. Somebody posted this video and I thought I would share. I have no affiliation with the product and I'm not endorsing it as I've never even tried it, but the theory behind the video should be the same as growing in a colander.

[63pmp]

Bump!

Chris is a good guy, I don't grow in colanders so can't answer his question, maybe some that do could respond because I would like to know the answer.

regards,

Paul

[Ray M]

Hi Chris,
I am the member of AusBonsai that posted this thread. I will try to answer your questions below. I am away on holidays at present. When I get back home I will take a photo of some of my trees lined up in colanders.

Hello all,

This is my first post on this forum. I found this discussion referenced on another forum (bonsainut.com) and wanted to ask a couple of questions. As you note, members on that forum in general believe that planting the colander in the ground defeats the purpose of using the colander. In their view, having the sides of the colander exposed to the air creates "air pruning". When the roots get near the side of the colander, instead of diving down and around like they do in a standard nursery pot, they die off (due to the dry air). The theory is that this maintains a desirable fibrous mass of mainly feeder roots within the pot.
I have been using colanders for well over 20 years. I use them in two ways.
1/ I use them like ordinary pots. These are placed on the ground, the same as you would for any growing pot, but not buried. I have hundreds of trees in colanders and use colanders from 100mm diameter to 600mm diameter. These are watered and fertilized as you would do for any tree you are growing on. Because the colanders give very good drainage you may have to water a little more than ordinary pots. When the roots come out through the sides of the colander they will die off. You wont get root binding like in solid wall pots.
2/ Planting the colanders in the ground. This is used for a totally different purpose. When I want to grow trees on quicker I use this method. As I mentioned earlier you plant the colander only as deep as the rim. The roots will grow though the holes in the colander into the ground. This gives the same effect as ground planting. I raise the colander up to three times a year, depending on the species of tree, and do a root prune. Place the colander back in the ground and let the tree take off again. The great thing with this method is that you are not affecting the root ball. Because you are only pruning the roots outside the colander the root ball is not affected.

My belief (and it seems to be backed up by this thread), is that if you plant the colander in the ground, the air pruning effect is obviously stopped and roots can grow out through the colander into the soil. I would also think that some of the roots would grow down and around within the colander, creating some circling roots. However, I've never tried this...so I'm wondering what you guys find when you examine the root systems inside the colanders after they've been buried for a while.

Has anyone done any side-by-side comparisons with colanders both above and in the ground? I would think planting the colanders in the ground and lifting periodically would result in faster growth but perhaps not as good of a close, fibrous root system. People posting on the other forum don't agree but haven't tried both methods, as far as I can tell.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer some additional insights.

Chris
New York/USA

While perusing another forum, a thread about growing in colanders came up. They didn't seem to like the ground growing idea (their loss) but were big fans of just growing in colanders for development. Somebody posted this video and I thought I would share. I have no affiliation with the product and I'm not endorsing it as I've never even tried it, but the theory behind the video should be the same as growing in a colander.

Regards Ray