AusBonsai

I noticed an eBay shop in the UK that sells plastic bonsai pots.

http://stores.shop.ebay.com.au/Lutterwo ... Z304102016

Going on the price I'm not sure I can see a cost-saving over the price of normal pots (at least the standard everyday ones) which would make them useful for training purposes or whatever.

(1) Is there a benefit to using them - I notice the seller does say "this pot is fully frost proof".

(2) I haven't seen anything similar for sale in Australia.

apart from the price i wouldnt bother with them mate, you if you are gonna put a tree in a plastic pot for training/growing purposes it defeats the purpose of putting them in grow pots, if that makes sense, you would be better off in the ground or in styro boxes is what i am trying to say.

as for being frost proof i doubt that, a thin plastic walled pot would be quite easily penetrated by frost, look at ice cream containers in the freezer, would be no thicker than them and the ice cream freezes so i wouldnt even like to think about the damage it could cause roots

just my thoughts on it pal


jamie

In Europe their trees roots and soil are encouraged to freeze in winter. This also means the pots freeze. With ceramics pots the pot will crack if it has and moisture in it. These pots are designed to be able to freeze with out breaking. If most of the pots we use in Australia (the cheap imports) were allowed to freeze we would have a lot of trees in broken pots!

Good one, Jarrod, thought there must have been a reason for them.

Plastic isn't a really bad container for plants, nearly everything is grown in it nowadays. Terracotta tends to let things dry out too much. Certainl it looks better and lovely pots are part of finished bonsai, but for a plant in training, why not?

Plastic pots can be very useful if you are training lots of trees and the cost of good pots is prohibitive.
Craig

craigw60 wrote:Plastic pots can be very useful if you are training lots of trees and the cost of good pots is prohibitive.
Craig

Kmart etc sell those 180/200mm black plastic posts for $2.50ea! Extortion! In the next row at Bunnings and Kmart they sell 9l plastic buckets for 98c so you can guess what I bought.

sorry if i seem agrguementative but i still cant see a point of having a platic bonsai pot where we are, jarrod put across a valid point about the freeze factor in the northern hemisphere, now i can even understand plastic nursery pots used as grow on pots being bigger than necessary, or a smaller size for a branch selection process.

but if you are at that point and the tree is ready for a pot then isnt is saying its ready to go into a bonsai pot? unless there is a finacial reason for there use which i could understand aswell, other than that if a tree is ready for a plastic bonsai pot then isnt it ready for a fired ceramic, stone ware, earthernware or the likes to do the final development?

it just my understanding anyways, JMHO


jamie

Jamie wrote:sorry if i seem agrguementative but i still cant see a point of having a platic bonsai pot where we are....

jamie

Totally agree, Jamie. When I noticed them on eBay I was just surprised and wondered about the need for them and why they didn't just used the ordinary plastic nursery pots. Jarrod's info sounded spot on.

Ron

yea exactly, like i said Jarrod put a valid point across, other than that or finacial reasons ( ehich i find is a bit of a false economy as such as it cost more for postage than the product i wonder how they make there money ) there isnt much of a use in my eyes.


jamie

I dont get plastic pots for $2.50 each. I buy them wholesale for about 15 cents.You can have a rough guess from that how much B####ings is ripping you off. I do it by having a business number and registering as a nursery with the wholesale people (all of that is free to anyone, register now for a business number if you want cheap wholesale plants, and if you dont make money the tax dept will never want to know). Yes I think it is disgusting that they ask so much for a simple pot, and yes if you came here I would resell them to you for 20 cents, just to cover the petrol and inconvenience of visiting, and maybe the price has risen since I last bought a batch.
I sell my herbs for about $3 that is 15 cents for the pot, 7 cents for the label, maybe 10 cents for quality potting mix, and the rest for my time and effort. The plant in the pot costs me almost nothing, just a seed or cutting. That still looks like an excessive cut for me, but its still a cheap price for a plant, compared to the other sellers. I think it is time to bust this bubble of prices, how much does it really cost to take a cutting?

These look like Korean Mica pots. They are deeper than traditional pots and are used as training pots. It's the next step after grow boxes, you start reducing root balls and developing finer roots before going into the final pot. You want to control root growth at this stage so you can start reducing internodes and foliage.
They also scrub up nice so you can still show the tree, and they last for a long time.

you can buy them in aus, ask your local bonsai nursery. If not you can find distributers online, just round up some club members and buy in bulk.

i may be completly wrong ben, but i dont think mica is plastic like it is being sold as? i can understand the use of mica training pots to, but these seem to be a standard size pot not deeper than usual? i may be wrong to.

i have started using collanders for my shimpaku these days as training pots as it allows for fine feeders to develop on the trees root system

jamie

Mica is not plastic Jamie it is a mined mineral, it was used in electrical filaments in old radio valves and in light globes and other electrical things like toaster's.

When they were first imported Ray Nesci and Leong Kwong imported them in great numbers. Because they were cheap and when polished with Armoral they came up nice. Now the Chinese imported pots are cheaper.

The Mica pots were or are 80% mica 10% graphite and 10% plastic. The plastic pots that are shaped like Bonsai pots are for, as Asus pointed out the step for root pruning for the final pot. Also in a situation where you have limited space for large Poly boxes, like a small backyard. I have some I use for cuttings and as I said down sizing the roots.

Pup wrote:Mica is not plastic Jamie it is a mined mineral, it was used in electrical filaments in old radio valves and in light globes and other electrical things like toaster's.

When they were first imported Ray Nesci and Leong Kwong imported them in great numbers. Because they were cheap and when polished with Armoral they came up nice. Now the Chinese imported pots are cheaper.

The Mica pots were or are 80% mica 10% graphite and 10% plastic. The plastic pots that are shaped like Bonsai pots are for, as Asus pointed out the step for root pruning for the final pot. Also in a situation where you have limited space for large Poly boxes, like a small backyard. I have some I use for cuttings and as I said down sizing the roots.

As Pup says.. the mica pots are used as Initial training pots and are very durable. I have one big one myself, and wish I could get some more. They are light and strong, and will bounce when dropped Much more robust than the good old poly box, and available in different sizes

A tree in them can look very nice wile developing on the benches, Much better than a plain round plastic one or bulb pan.
Ray does not import them any more as they are no longer available apparently . These may well be a useful subsititute.
Anyone know if they are available in OZ?