Grow Box Size

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Nice idea @Wires_Guy_wires .
Will test sticking a chunk of pine wood in soil.
Thanks.
Good Day
Anthony

This scots pine was collected this spring. It did way better than all the rest did. On average, it has around 8 backbuds per branch, where others only made 3-5. The wood (spruce or fir) was covered in mycelium and parts of the soil just fell off when checking the roots. The grow box was falling apart, so a repot was needed this fall. If you look closely in this bad picture, you see that half of the soil is grey, that's all fungus.
Pine bark doesn't seem to be broken down that fast for some reason. Maybe that's because the fungus feeding the pine, would be bad for the pine if it would develop a taste for pine meat. It's not symbiosis of course, if one eats the other.

 

[Anthony]

@Wires_Guy_wires ,

tried composting purely pine needles. Took about four years.
Might be the resin, helping to slow decay.
Will be testing the pine compost on pines.
Let you know if anything special happens.
Thanks again.
Anthony

 

[Gaitano]

Why 3.5 inch? Seems like an unecessarily HEAVY box. Cedar is already rot resistant, why not use a thinner plank? Something like a maple is not going to be in the box long enough for the cedar to rot. Maybe I am missing something. Please illuminate.

As it seems the confusion was cleared... yes the 3.5" is the width of the board, not the thickness. The thickness is between 1/2" to 3/4".

 

[Dan92119]

I use 1x6x6 dog eared cedar fence boards. I have made 16x16, 10x10 and 10x12 boxes. The fence boards are $2.49 ea at Home Depot. I will rip down the board for handles and feet. I use pet resistant screen material I get from Amazon. I just screw everything together. Pre drilling and damp boards can keep the cedar from splitting.

 

[ysrgrathe]

These are the boxes I make, using 3.5" cedar. I can crank em out pretty quick. I think I cut the boards 10" long. Wood glue and a nail gun makes quick assembly.

Nice box! It's better to use wire clips and not staples to secure your screens. It can damage the roots when you are forced to yank the rootball off of the screen. You want to be able to release the screen from the outside of the box.

 

[coltranem]

Hey guys how shallow is too shallow. I had some scrap 1x3 from another project. Bix is 10x10x2.25 on the inside. I am thinking of moving the juniper into it.

 

[River's Edge]

Hey guys how shallow is too shallow. I had some scrap 1x3 from another project. Bix is 10x10x2.25 on the inside. I am thinking of moving the juniper into it.

I would not use it for juniper, conifers do better in a deeper grow box with inside depth of 4 inches. Perhaps a maple that already has a flatter root ball from development.

 

[Adair M]

If you’re growing a maple out in a grow box, you ought to go ahead and bare root it first, get under the trunk and remove ALL the downward growing roots, and screw the trunk to a board. Splay all the radial roots out across the board, THEN plant the board a couple inches deep in the box. You’ll get great nebari this way. See @markyscott’s thread “Ebihara Maples” for more info.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Hey guys how shallow is too shallow. I had some scrap 1x3 from another project. Bix is 10x10x2.25 on the inside. I am thinking of moving the juniper into it.

Junipers appreciate a slightly deeper container than you can get away with using for d-trees. I’d go with a depth of 1.5-2x trunk diameter.

 

[jeanluc83]

I built this a couple of weeks ago from pine furring strips. Total cost ~$3 the screws and screen I already had. It measures 12" x 24" x 2.5" and will be used to start pine seeds.