What are your thoughts on pond baskets?

[Manbris]

I have all of my developing pines and even a few deciduous trees in either pond baskets or cheap plastic colanders. I'm in Zone 7B and all of these are in full sun for about 6 hours per day. My soil mixes are at least 50% pumice, and except for the 90°+ F. days, I find that I only need to water once per day. In fact, the pines only get watered every 2 or 3 days. Everything is growing very well.
I do have cedar grow boxes for some of my larger trees (mostly deciduous at this point, but with many JBP, JRP and 2 JWP coming along well, I'm going to build 8 or 10 more grow boxes this fall for repotting season '26)

What’s your spec on these boxes? Any pic?

 

[jeremy_norbury]

Great pic and very nice setup.

Does the inner branch die back? Do you find airflow an issue? Any insects? Why not let them grown for longer in the bed like a year or two?

Cheers

1. I rotate them to try ensure lower and inner foliage survives - especially on Larches. Doesn't always work but we try. If I had sufficient space I'd have everything in the ground - but it's a pain in the ass in a small garden like mine.
2. I've never had particularly bad issues with airflow - but again, if I had more space I'd spread them out MUCH more than I do today.
3. Longer would be nice but I'm forver picking them up and rotating and wiring and stuff. I like small trees anyway so if I ever want a bigger tree, I just buy one.

 

[NashsMan]

What’s your spec on these boxes? Any pic?

Mine were made from 1x6 cedar; smooth on one side and both edges. I bought $100 worth and built 5 boxes: 2 @ 18" x 18" x 5-1/2" deep and 3@ 14x14x5-1/2".
I used ripped pieces of cedar for the bottoms with 1/4" x 1/4" hardware cloth (galvanized screen) to bridge the gaps.
All connections were made with zinc oxide speed screws. These are now almost 2 years old and show no signs of decay or damage. Drainage is excellent.

I will make a new batch in October but with 1x4 cedar. The first set was for transitioning yamadori; next ones will be for developing nebari.

 

[blackadam]

Damn, those are very nice boxes!

 

[badatusernames]

I’ve tried them out and mostly moved away from them. Not because they don’t work but because they feel flimsy and look ugly. Been growing some ume in them for three years and debating between box, terra cotta, or Anderson flat for next year. Deeper Terra cotta feels right… still thickening them up

 

[NashsMan]

I’ve tried them out and mostly moved away from them. Not because they don’t work but because they feel flimsy and look ugly. Been growing some ume in them for three years and debating between box, terra cotta, or Anderson flat for next year. Deeper Terra cotta feels right… still thickening them up

I have moved to shallower, wider terracotta pots for some of my developing deciduous trees, especially crabapples and Princess Persimmon. Those shallow pots are hard to find @

 

[Attmos]

Mine were made from 1x6 cedar; smooth on one side and both edges. I bought $100 worth and built 5 boxes: 2 @ 18" x 18" x 5-1/2" deep and 3@ 14x14x5-1/2".
I used ripped pieces of cedar for the bottoms with 1/4" x 1/4" hardware cloth (galvanized screen) to bridge the gaps.
All connections were made with zinc oxide speed screws. These are now almost 2 years old and show no signs of decay or damage. Drainage is excellent.

I will make a new batch in October but with 1x4 cedar. The first set was for transitioning yamadori; next ones will be for developing nebari.

I've been thinking about this project...
Does it make any sense to put supports in the corners so that you can use wire mesh for the entire bottom of the box?

 

[blackadam]

reinforce bottom with some slats - keeps box in shape
and those supports are a musthave when using scrapwood

made one recently from pallet leftovers.. (cost - 0$, wonder how long it takes till desintegrate - should survive the winter in coldframe)

 

[badatusernames]

I have moved to shallower, wider terracotta pots for some of my developing deciduous trees, especially crabapples and Princess Persimmon. Those shallow pots are hard to find @

I saw a video once from a Japanese nursery where they cut a terracotta in half and then place the bottom portion into the top to make it shallower

I’ve lost the video though, would love to see how they cut it because it looks quite useful

 

[NashsMan]

I've been thinking about this project...
Does it make any sense to put supports in the corners so that you can use wire mesh for the entire bottom of the box?

With pallet wood, which is much thinner, I would think corner reinforcement would be necessary. With 1x6 and the slats on the bottom serving as corner bracing, you don't need anything else at the corners.
I think that if want an entire mesh bottom the corners might be a plus.
Also, @markyscott has a post/maybe a thread somewhere on here about using adhesive fiberglass mesh tape (sold for drywall repairs) to bridge the gaps between the boards on the bottom and this would also provide adequate drainage.

 

[yesimnathan]

Mine were made from 1x6 cedar; smooth on one side and both edges. I bought $100 worth and built 5 boxes: 2 @ 18" x 18" x 5-1/2" deep and 3@ 14x14x5-1/2".
I used ripped pieces of cedar for the bottoms with 1/4" x 1/4" hardware cloth (galvanized screen) to bridge the gaps.
All connections were made with zinc oxide speed screws. These are now almost 2 years old and show no signs of decay or damage. Drainage is excellent.

I will make a new batch in October but with 1x4 cedar. The first set was for transitioning yamadori; next ones will be for developing nebari.

These boxes look great. I'll probably do something similar when I build mine.

A couple of the garden centers near me have been stocking some pretty high quality shallow terracotta pots recently. I'm slowly buying all of them

 

[Wulfskaar]

I've been thinking about this project...
Does it make any sense to put supports in the corners so that you can use wire mesh for the entire bottom of the box?

The last box I made was this same design, but I stapled the wire mesh into the inside/bottom of the box with a staple gun.

 

[Newish in Oregon]

With pallet wood, which is much thinner, I would think corner reinforcement would be necessary. With 1x6 and the slats on the bottom serving as corner bracing, you don't need anything else at the corners.
I think that if want an entire mesh bottom the corners might be a plus.
Also, @markyscott has a post/maybe a thread somewhere on here about using adhesive fiberglass mesh tape (sold for drywall repairs) to bridge the gaps between the boards on the bottom and this would also provide adequate drainage.

Problem I had with the adhesive fiberglass mesh tape is that the tape was pretty much destroyed when I took the tree out. Probably wouldn't have that issue with hardware cloth

 

[Attmos]

reinforce bottom with some slats - keeps box in shape
and those supports are a musthave when using scrapwood
View attachment 612075
made one recently from pallet leftovers.. (cost - 0$, wonder how long it takes till desintegrate - should survive the winter in coldframe)

Since the wood you source is free, and not cedar, you could spend a little of the money you saved and buy some liquid wood hardener. I won't go into how it works, but it's not expensive and might help your boxes last longer.

 

[MaciekA]

Speaking of reinforcement, there are a couple pond basket and colander designs floating around the planet that are quite flexible, and this flexibility be a huge pain in the butt because the entire container shears, bends, sags, flexes. Also, for the larger ones (thunder group wash basket below), the issue of sag at the bottom-center of the basket is a big deal too especially if you have to move trees around often.

Some specific examples

- that little 7x7" / semi-shallow black plastic pond basket. Very delicate sidewalls that easily bulge out. Whole-container shearing forces too.
- the somewhat larger diamond/argyle mesh pond basket. Same as above, but also bottom sagging. Whole-container shearing forces but worse.
- the shallow (rectangular footprint about A4 paper size) blue Thunder Group brand "wash baskets". Great sidewalls but that huge mesh at the bottom sags really easily.

For these, I double up on the basket and it makes a HUGE difference in stiffness and pretty much completely eliminates the bottom sag issue. It's a lot less dangerous to pick up and move around.

With regards to the 8 and 10 inch thunder group round colanders (especially the red ones):

I have been moving away from the shallow round thunder group colanders (8 and 10 inch) because they're so hard to keep stable with a tall sacrificial leader / poodle (even an aerodynamic one), but also, they fall apart in a flash if you are growing pines in them (because you're growing them in full sun, right?). This is one characteristic where the equivalent-size Japanese terra cotta pot just absolutely blows the colander away.

Most things that I have in colanders I water enough that they attract moss and ferns growing out the sidewalls, so I'm not really concerned by the drying out of edge roots, but stability against wind is really hard to fix with a 8" colander. I could 3D print stabilizer buttresses, but one concern there is that these things fall apart in UV so fast that I could imagine the buttress/colander interface effortlessly shattering from a proper wind gust.

I often shatter these thunder group colanders with a feather touch of my hand (anyone else run into this after a year or two?) because after enough time their structural integrity goes from stiff plastic to a wafer of sugar. It really sucks to have a tree drop out of your hand because the plastic is as fragile as a candy bar. If you have to use either the 8 or 10 inch round colanders, avoid the red ones like the plague because they are fragile. I'm still mostly using a supply obtained in the pre-pandemic period, so I can't imagine what the red ones will be cheapened down to these days.

 

[blackadam]

boxes last longer.

That material was not worth any effort, could upcycle as a box i need or put that wood straight to stove (chemical treatment forbids using as a kindling)
Box need to stay only till spring, and i made it bit too big (will have nursery pot available in spring when i repot my pommes)
Cherry needed temporary pot for winter, need only to survive and grow, future plan is to air layer or propagate via cuttings (its a graft so i dont need to worry about nebari at this moment)
Next boxes i plan to build would be much better and stonger, starting from material choose to dimensions - gonna make few to fit my balcony
I putted bit more effort in making balcony coldframe tho

 

[AGentleman]

I double up on the basket and it makes a HUGE difference in stiffness

I've been wracking my brain on how to stiffen the colanders etc. that I've just potted all my trees (sticks) into.
This is so simple, I'll try it today when the sun comes up.
You're a genius.
Thank you,
Greg