You can make it a little easier to grow in a container without holes if you keep a few tips in mind. Gaining experience at it helps too. If you stick to plants with less (subcuticular) waxiness in the leaves so that they show wilt easily. You can wait until the first signs of wilt to water. This is a form of stress, and not the best for your plants, but it would certainly be preferred to over-watering. You will quickly establish a water-needs pattern for the planting & learn to water at the approximate onset of wilt. You can use a wooden probe (sharpen a dowel in a pencil sharpener - don't waste your money on an inexpensive moisture meter) to check for soil moisture. Insert it deep into the pot. If it comes out damp & cool - no need to water. If it comes out dry - water. The human hand cannot detect moisture in soils at levels much below 45% saturation. Only at about 30% saturation, do soils begin holding water so tightly that it is unavailable for assimilation by plants. This allows you about a 15% margin of error. If you're able to keep from over-watering, it's inevitable that you'll have carbonate and metal salts build-up from irrigation water and any chemical fertilizers you might use. This can create a plasmolic effect that actually "sucks" moisture from roots (reverse osmosis), making it eventually impossible for the plants to absorb water from the salts-laden soil. I have some penjing plantings that are in shallow trays, some several years old. I use distilled water for irrigation along with a minimal amount of soluble micro-nutrients and fish/seaweed emulsion at every watering while the plantings are actively growing. This eliminates the salt build-up problem. You certainly CAN do it, but you'll need to be extra attentive if you choose a container w/o drainage. Al

Al and Josh, Oh, I wish I had posted about this sooner! I've run myself ragged trying to find this bark and now I have at least one and possibly two sources. Most promising right now is the Armstrong Garden Center which is in the town just south of me. They have the "Orchid Bark Fine" by E.B. Stone, 1 cu. ft. for only $9. (The repti-bark was $22 for 24 oz.!) I also called Shasta. I had seen them online last week, and they had the perfect size (Mini Bark, Pea Pebble), but their website made it look like they only sold starting in cubic yards. When I called today, I discovered that they do have 2 and 3 cu. ft. bags (for $2 and $6) and the woman there has promised to email me tomorrow if she can find any dealers close by. Happy days are here again. :) Claire

My neighbor gave me an amaryllis in a pot with no drainage hole, and it has bloomed for 3 years in a row. I don't get it. I just water when it gets dry, but I don't let it out in rain to get soaked. I keep it under a covered porch or carport in summer. And bring it in for winter. I had several plants survive for about a year after my mom died, sent in a nice hole-less pot but I repotted them after a couple years---pothos, coffee, dracaena, prayer plant. I wish I could use all those pots without getting out a drill, but they are too shallow. But I do tend to root plants in water and they seem happy for a year or so at least. So maybe those--anything but succulents--won't mind these kinds of pots? I have all kinds of plants rooting and growing in water.

I think those pots with no holes must be meant as cachepots. Who would use a pot with no holes? Anyway, you could try to borrow bigger drill bits or the drill with bigger bits. Or make do with what you have- lots of little holes. That's what I usually do and it works out OK. Use a potting mix that drains well. "lining the bottom few inches of the pot with terra cotta, or stones..." The short answer is no, use a consistent mix in the container. No stones or gravel in the bottom. Al has a now infamous thread on the container forum on the movement of water in a container. It explains the perched water table well. It's a lot to get through, but if you stick with it it's very informative. Karen Here is a link that might be useful: Movement of water in a container