Evergreens/conifers in containers in winter, Al and others?

11 years ago

Hi everyone. I recently bought some urn style pots for our front porch that I would like to sink some potted evergreens into over the winter. Here are some specs of the area. It's a brick walkway underneath an overhanging porch. It's an eastern exposure but doesn't get a lot of sun due to a three story house across the road from us. I was planning on having these trees eventually planted in gritty mix. I would like to practice root pruning in order to keep these trees year after year. I'm assuming this can be done. Here are my questions.

What evergreens would do good in my zone in containers? I would like something with more height than width that I can maintain around 4-6 feet

Does the size of the containers they are planted in make a difference?

Do evergreens need sunlight when the soil is frozen? In the spring and summer I would move them to fuller sun in my back garden.

A landscaping friend of mine suggested thuja plicata. I found some at a local nursery but they were already 7-8 feet tall. I was hoping for something shorter and more dwarfing.

Sorry for the lengthy post. I thank all of you folks for your help in advance!

Kristopher

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Comments (5)

ngrrsn
11 years ago
Planting on a north or east side of a home with some shelter will help evergreens avoid "winter burn", so being on the east side of your home should be fine. I don't know how much cover you have, but roots in containers get colder than in the ground. Some evergreens are more fragile than others...my wife and I have wrapped containers during severe cold snaps with blankets! Water well before your first hard freeze, but then after that if you have a warm/dry spell give more water at least once a month until March....while the tree may be dormant, it can still be growing roots and needs some water, and contrary to "dormancy" thought, evergreen trees continue to use sunlight and carbon dioxide in the air to make food during the winter. Therefore, it needs to get some sun unless you have a shade tolerant species. Speaking of which, since it sounds like you want smaller more conical/pyramidal than globe trees, you may want to consider Picea glauca 'Jean's Dilly' or Picea glauca 'Rainbow's End'. But make sure you get these dwarf or miniatures...their brothers get significantly bigger! My wife and I have about 25 container trees that we keep moving and caring for while we decide where to plant our roots for the next stage of our lives. :)
ngrrsn
11 years ago
On my previous reply I suggested shade tolerant trees. Dwarf Alberta Spruce is another one, but I didn't mention it because it can get bigger and is susceptible to an aphid-like pest. AND by shade tolerant I mean it gets light/indirect sun most of the day like dappled shade OR 4 to 6 hours of full sun. They need some sun, so hopefully your location still provides a minimum of light accordingly....even in winter.
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I've been using Al's (gritty) mix with pines, junipers, yews, and myriad other conifers for well over 20 years now, and though I do do a lot of experimenting with soils, have yet to find anything that works better. ;-) I'm not self-promoting, just saying that I experiment with soils a LOT, and have yet to improve on the basic gritty mic mix. It holds LOTS of air, virtually NO perched water, ample volumes of water, is structurally very sound & durable, and it's adjustable for water retention to suit plants individually. Those are all the most desirable qualities you can have in a soil. I wouldn't use wood chips other than conifer bark as a primary fraction of a container soil for several reasons. A pH spike during the composting process is inevitable. Wood chips break down much faster than conifer bark, so when using them, N immobilization should be expected. Also. because they break down so much faster, they generate a LOT of heat during the composting process, often raising sol temps an additional 10-15* higher than similar soils with bark as their primary fraction. Of course, N immobilization with the gritty mix is insignificant and heat build-up due to composting is never a problem because of how slowly the bark decomposes AND the excellent gas exchange of the highly aerated mix. A 50/50 mix of a peat-based soil (like ProMix) and wood chips will yield a soil with the same drainage characteristics and perched water table height as the ProMix. Only when the wood chips (which are not a good choice for container media) are a very large fraction of the soil (about 80%) can you expect drainage & aeration to improve significantly. To get a visual on this, ask yourself how much perlite you need to add to a quart of pudding to get it to drain & hold air. BTW - most commercial cactus mixes actually drain poorly & support way too much perched water to be healthy for cacti, succulents, or conifers. All of the pines, junipers, and most other conifers I've grown would instantly rebel at wet media and the presence of significant amounts of perched water as the mix of ProMix and wood chips would be/have. They prefer a soil that holds little or no perched water and remains damp after watering instead of wet. I have 320 lineal ft of bench space like you see in the picture below. Most of the space is much more crowded with potential bonsai than you see, and conifers make up at least half of the near 300 trees. All are in the gritty mix; and I have no trouble keeping them happy & healthy. Al
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First, the heat comes FROM the garage floor (geo-thermal), so you don't want to isolate the bottom of your containers from the floor, as that would insulate them from the heat source. Set your containers directly ON the floor to take advantage of both conductive and radiant heat coming through and rising from the floor. If your tree is small enough, simply overturn a box and cover the entire tree. The open end of the box goes down - against the floor, and the top of the box is the closed end in this arrangement. If the tree is too large or too tall to completely cover, use the box in the same fashion, but cut a slit in the box and a hole in the top (former bottom) of the box to accommodate the trunk. This usually requires you to measure the appropriate ht of the box and cut it down to that ht so it will accommodate the trunk - especially when there are multiple trunks involved. In the case of multiple trunks, you want the box to be of a ht such that the hole to accommodate the trunks is as small as possible. If Martin's goal is to keep the roots warm, it would be better, when using that arrangement, if he set the boxes up on a shelf. It appears that the bottom of the box (unless it is open) is isolating the plants from the heat source (the floor). Cold air sinks to the floor, so the coldest spot in the garage is immediately above the floor. If the pots are insulated from the heat source, root temperatures will be colder on the floor than at any other spot in the garage. An open top doesn't trap heat from the floor, either. The method I described not only traps heat from the floor, but it also insulates roots against extreme cold - like if you forget and leave the door open on an extremely cold day. You can try this and monitor temps - you'll be surprised at how warm it is in the box. Also, keep in mind that the slab will be much warmer near the wall common to house/garage if you need to take advantage of that fact. Also - insulation doesn't help unless it aids you in trapping heat IN the box from some other extraneous source. In this case, it would be the floor. Insulation in the overturned box is unnecessary, though I wouldn't hesitate to use a little tape and insulation to seal the slit in the box (if req'd) and to seal the hole around the trunk. Al
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krismast
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you very much for your reply, ngrrsn. I will try looking for the varieties you mentioned. Do you know if any of the dwarf cypresses would work like Hinoki gold? Or arborvitaes?

Kristopher
ngrrsn
11 years ago
Arborvitaes need sun. We have a row of them, about 8' tall as a traffic screen. They get morning east and north sun, but big pine trees to the south and west keep them in shade most of the day. The shade sides of the tree get brown and bare; so from one side they look good, but from the other side they look bad. Plus, these are taller than what you indicated you wanted. My wife and I planted a Hinoki near our house because a nursery called it a good mid-sized tree that likes a little shade. Well, the result is that it got bigger than we thought, and looks scraggly because it doesn't get enough sun. By some shade they mean it likes some late afternoon shade...but mostly it needs sun. I think you will find better options....but these may be o.k. for a pot for a year or two? Depends on your long term goals, I guess --- but I wouldn't use these per your original post qualifications for the tree.
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
11 years ago
K - late to the party & carrying questions. The most significant limiting factor will be available light. How patient are you or how deep would you say your pockets are? By that I mean, are you willing to consider a plant that only grows an inch or two per year, or are you willing to pay for a large specimen of a plant like that? There are several dwarf conifers that would be good choices that would need to me eliminated if the cost of instant gratification is more than the buyer is willing to bear. Are deer an issue where you live?

Hemlock species known to be resistant to adelgids, umbrella pine, red pine, some yews, ChamaeÃ¯Â¿Â½cypÃ¯Â¿Â½aris pisifera or obtusa, even A koreana (Korean fir) would work.

Al

Evergreens/conifers in containers in winter, Al and others?

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ngrrsn

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krismast
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ngrrsn

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Evergreens/conifers in containers in winter, Al and others?

Comments (5)

ngrrsn

ngrrsn

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krismastOriginal Author

ngrrsn

tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)

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krismast
Original Author