[pbs] Pots vs. In Ground Culture
totototo at telus.net
totototo at telus.net
Sat Oct 7 13:35:34 EDT 2006
On 7 Oct 06, at 14:51, Alberto Castillo wrote:
> ...growing [bulbs] in pots is a lot less satisfactory. Most of us
> are witness of the same results. BUT, what the post was all about
> from the beginning is that what makes pot culture insatisfactory is
> the bonsai effect produced by small pots. And that by using really
> big containers you can mimick free range conditions a lot.
However, if you haven't room for BIG pots, there are still things you
can do to ameliorate the situation.
Based on my own experience, I'd single out these:
1. Protecting the pots from direct sun that overheats the soil. A
simple wooden frame as high as, or slightly higher than, the pots
will provide more or less adequate shade.
2. Plunging the pots in a bed of sand. This is especially effective
with terra cotta pots because their porosity allows the sand bed to
buffer the moisture level. Overwater and the sand soaks it up;
underwater and the sand provides a backup water supply. (It may be
that capillary contact via the drainhole is more important than the
porosity of the clay pot.) A plunge bed also keeps the soil cooler.
3. Fertilization. In a smallish pot, there is a limited amount of
nutrition available. Once it is utilized by the bulbs or leached out
by watering, your bulbs are starved, growing in too lean a mix. It
doesn't take a lot of fertilizer to give good results. I once had a
number of 4" (10 cm) clay pots holding crocus seedlings, all neatly
plunged in a sand bed. They sat for years with no flowers. I finally
fed them with a low-nitrogen soluble fertilizer, just once during
active growth, and next spring the majority flowered for the first
time.
I'm not sure what time of year I did this, but I have a dim
recollection that it was in late summer, just as root growth starts.
--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate
on beautiful Vancouver Island
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