Growing small trees outdoors in pots - plastic or fabric

Ram

2 years ago

last modified: 2 years ago

Hi,

I am planning grow crape myrtle (mature height 12ft) and eastern red bud (mature height 20 ft) in pots outdoors.

I am considering fabric pots - start with 30 gallon and then 60 or 100 gallon pots.

The fabric pot sellers say that the roots will be air pruned, so there will be no root bounding or root circling issue.

I saw a video on Youtube that said that the roots got sewn into the fabric and that removing those eventually killed the trees.

Has anyone has experience with keeping a tree in a fabric pot?

Thanks!

Regards,

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Comments (7)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
2 years ago
Why do you want to do this?
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
2 years ago
probably roof top???

there is a forum.. which is escaping me right now.. perhaps container growing... or some such.. as well as balcony and/or rooftop forums ...

but im not sure if they are active.. or still around ...

the usual thought is a pot proportional to the plant age ... and repeated repotting over the years ... so you dont start with a babe in a 30 gal pot ... and you probably dont start with a 6 foot tree and try to bag it ....

im not quite buying the claim that air pruned roots will never circle ....

but it wouldnt surprise me that if left too long you wont get it out of the fabric ...

ken
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
2 years ago
Lots of folks grow trees in containers for lots of reasons :-) I have a wide collection of trees grown solely in containers but not fabric ones - mine are all in plastic resin or glazed ceramic. And I do limit their size.....30-40G is about as large as I go. Anything larger than that becomes too unwieldly to manage when it does come time to replace the potting media....which you will need to do.......and for any root pruning (I am also not 100% convinced that this is unnecessary with a fabric pot). There is also the issue of how these potted trees will be overwintered in a colder climate area.

Is there a life expectancy for these fabric pots? I can't imagine they last indefinitely........
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
2 years ago
The question wasn't asked to negate the idea proposed, just to zero in on the goal to provide the most relevant feedback.
JoJo (Nevada 9A)
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
I don't know what kind of style you're going for, but so-called Versailles planters are designed for trees.

Find one that opens on the side, so getting the rootball out will be easier. Some also come with wheels.
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
2 years ago
The fabric pot sellers say that the roots will be air pruned, so there will be no root bounding or root circling issue. This is not so. Containers (fabric or other) designed to (hopefully) "air-prune" roots do so by virtue of the highly aerated pot walls which causes desiccation of the soil and roots at the perimeter of the root/soil mass. Just as removing the growing tip of a branch (the apical meristem) forces new branching to occur proximal to (behind) the pruning cut, death of root tips forces new root branching proximal to necrotic root tips, so you end up with roughly the same amount of root congestion. If you consider top growth occurs subsequent to an increase in root mass large enough to support any increase in volume of the canopy, whether or not the plant is in a conventional container or a container that comes with the claim of no circling roots or root congestion, both of these undesirable conditions occur and become progressively more limiting as the canopy (and therefore the root mass) increases in volume.

The fabric growing pots/bags don't last forever, so you'll need to replace them from time to time, and it will be no problem separating the bag from the root/soil mass.

I saw a video on Youtube that said that the roots got sewn into the fabric and that removing those eventually killed the trees. Don't believe everything you see/ hear/ read. Any roots that become entangled in the walls of fabric or plastic pots can be pruned. The person responsible for providing the information you referred to is operating at beyond the limits of his/her knowledge. I do full repots on over 200 trees per year, which includes bare-rooting; root pruning, during which I often remove more than 75% of the tree's root mass; and, a change of grow medium. Before/after images of a couple of repots:

Buxus (spc. unknown):

Acer palmatum:

This Japanese maple ^^^ was collected from the landscape as a seedling, which means the odds of it having a very ugly root mass were near 100% (which is inappropriate for a bonsai tree); so I had to air layer the tree above it's original roots. You can see the tourniquet wire I used to determine the ht at which the new roots would grow. I also made sure the new roots were perfectly spaced around the tree's circumference. This a Carpinus coreana (Korean hornbeam) that illustrates how I did that part.

The evenly spaced holes above the zip ties are filled with an insoluble rooting aid before the tree is transplanted. The constriction provided by the zip ties stops the downward flow of photosynthate (food) and a growth hormone (auxin) which collects in tissue above the constriction and ensures almost 100% success.

I've strayed a bit from the topic while illustrating why removing a few roots represents no threat to a containerized tree's viability, but I thought you might find it interesting.

Years ago, I posted a thread re Long Term Care of Trees in Containers. It should have lots of useful information you can rely on.

Al
alexcm [z6a]
2 years ago
I knew it was too good to be true, thanks Al! Thinking about it now that makes a lot of sense, if the plant needs to grow roots it needs to grow roots, and it probably wouldn't last very long if it simply gave up once it reached the edge of the container. It definitely avoids root wrapping in my experience but whether the less visible congestion it does cause is better or worse I can't say. I use them as much for the portability and easy storage as I do for the "air pruning" so I suppose that's alright.

There was some discussion of this on the citrus forum recently, much smaller trees than we're talking about here but some folks (and some commercial growers) seem to be very successful with them. One note was that roots don't stick much to the sides but they do to the bottom, which makes sense if you have the container on a closed surface.

Growing small trees outdoors in pots - plastic or fabric

Comments (7)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

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