Colanders and mesh; hold your roots!

[Clicio]

Most of the arguments and variations I keep hearing discussed are vapid

Thank you again.
So I was not wrong after all.

 

[jeanluc83]

Most of the colanders I've used have small enough holes so that my substrate doesn't sift through. On pond baskets I line them with self sticking drywall mesh. The adhesive is not grate but it stayed in place long enough to get it filled then the soil holds it in place.

A trick I found to keep your soil from sifting through your colanders is to use one of the colanders to sift with. Anything that is small enough to fall through is already elininated from your mix.

Colanders and pond baskets are generally used because that are relatively cheap and easy to find.

 

[sorce]

Growing one of these devices inside another will actually diminish the effectiveness of the devise as well as burying it in the ground.

I want to expand on this and have a learned discussion about the hole size of your baskets....

And how it may fit into this theory of mine that explains where the vapid arguments actually come from.

Based on the very real easily observable difference in what hole size actually means to a colander....

(https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/colanders-and-collected-trees.32121/post-532288) reference.

There is a clear difference between a colander that allows roots to escape...
As the air pot.

And ones that keep roots contained, as mesh, but still allows for proper airflow, which is what prunes the roots.

This "same but different" effect...

Is why it is true that Colanders of mesh, while they "air prune" are of no use in the ground or another, because there is no air, but further, the roots do not escape...

Whereas a colander with larger holes...or funnels as the air pot...can actually be utilized in a "placed in ground" effort, because when lifted out...roots escaped ..
And this is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT scenario.

That's what I was getting at in the other Resorce....

"Colander" is a broad term that needs to be broken down into the DIFFERECNCES THEY ACTUALLY CREATE....

or the vapid arguments will go on forever!

Sorce

 

[sorce]

Colanders and pond baskets are generally used because that are relatively cheap and easy to fin

I think they are really used because the Air pot video is amazing....

Then, people find completely different items that are cheap and readily available...

And start Vapid arguments because they do not understand the tool with which they work.

Sorce

 

[M. Frary]

I only use colanders to make fine roots. I don't use them to grow trees to size.
To grow trees out I'll be using large buckets and planting in the ground. Afterwords is when the colander comes into play.

 

[Vance Wood]

I think they are really used because the Air pot video is amazing....

Then, people find completely different items that are cheap and readily available...

And start Vapid arguments because they do not understand the tool with which they work.

Sorce

The argument that the soil falls out of these devices is an imagined problem or----an indication that the soil you use is too fine. How do you filter the fines out of your soil mix? You pass it through a scree of some dimension. Usually the screens used in colanders are small, pond baskets are small, and my planters are small. If soil slips out of these items something is wrong with the soil substrate not the device.

 

[jeanluc83]

I think they are really used because the Air pot video is amazing....

I've never even seen the video. I use colanders because I have seen some great results.

 

[sorce]

The argument that the soil falls out of these devices is an imagined problem or----an indication that the soil you use is too fine. How do you filter the fines out of your soil mix? You pass it through a scree of some dimension. Usually the screens used in colanders are small, pond baskets are small, and my planters are small. If soil slips out of these items something is wrong with the soil substrate not the device.

Dunno if you missed the post above the one you quoted.

I understand what you are saying about soil.

But I am referring to the vapid argument of wether or not these devices can or can not be used as a tool in the ground.

Where tool A.
Mesh basket can not use this method.

But tool B.
A large holed rice device can use this method.

Then the vapid argument is the thing about the ground...

Vapid because we are talking about 2 different tools.

As different as a Saw and am Air compressor...

But we just call them all Colanders....

That is the idiocy!

Nevermind the fool who trys to contain soil behind a wall with holes greater in size than the soil.
He is better off attempting to contain water in air.

Sorce

 

[sorce]

. I use colanders because I have seen some great results

I follow!

It is the who what when where how and why behind the great results that I aim to decipher.

Sort the "it depends"s.

Sorce

 

[Vance Wood]

Dunno if you missed the post above the one you quoted.

I understand what you are saying about soil.

But I am referring to the vapid argument of wether or not these devices can or can not be used as a tool in the ground.

Where tool A.
Mesh basket can not use this method.

But tool B.
A large holed rice device can use this method.

Then the vapid argument is the thing about the ground...

Vapid because we are talking about 2 different tools.

As different as a Saw and am Air compressor...

But we just call them all Colanders....

That is the idiocy!

Nevermind the fool who trys to contain soil behind a wall with holes greater in size than the soil.
He is better off attempting to contain water in air.

Sorce

A vapid argument is one without substance based on reality. In the case of a lot of what I have heard against air pots and replied to over the years are arguments concocted out of imagination in much the same way the argument for a flat Earth was upheld in the centuries before the age of enlightenment, 14th Century and onward. The argument being that if the world was round everything would fall off of it. The argument for some of the things against the air pots is based on the assumptions of those who have not used them. You can use them in the ground and you wont hurt the tree but you get almost no benefit from doing so, in fact if you tend to ignore your experiments you could produce negative results. The purpose for the air pot is to encourage fine feeder roots. If you put the tree in an air pot and put it in the ground you lose the advantage you gain from the air pot in air pruning extending roots. If you put a tree in a colander and then put that in another colander you will encounter the same problem and maybe worse. The major problem here is that people cannot come to grasp the fact that this really works without any of the ca-ca-may-me additions you imagine must be necessary.

 

[sorce]

The major problem here is that people cannot come to grasp the fact that this really works without any of the ca-ca-may-me additions you imagine must be necessary.

This is the very vapid argument that I am talking about....
(And Again I'm not having it with you, but trying to expose it so it stops)

As an Airpruning tool...yes..there is no need for additions....it works as you say.

The Additions, (ground, another basket) are merely converting the airpruning tool into a completely different tool....

A modified version of Mike's bucket stage if you will...

They become that new thing you can stick on a drill and make it a metal cutter.

A completely different tool known by the user to work differently than an airpruning pot.

The Important thing though....
Is this different size mesh and how it can or can not be utilized as this other tool, and how that leads to people ....

Well....

Not showing good results because they don't know what tool they are using.
Or for what purpose.

I want to properly define the clear differences in Colanders, and their effective use for the intended purpose ....

So we may or may not find more success in the purposes they can serve us.

Sorce

 

[Clicio]

people cannot come to grasp the fact that this really works

That's my point; it's been largely tested, proven, and it works by itself.

 

[Clicio]

I want to properly define the clear differences in Colanders, and their effective use for the intended purpose ....

So different size holes and different positioning (air; inside another colander; on the soil; in the soil) and we have different tools.
I can see the differences among techniques , but still not see the different purposes.

 

[bonsaidave]

I will not be using mesh again in my colanders. Too much work.

 

[sorce]

I can see the differences among techniques , but still not see the different purposes.

@Anthony is the "in ground" guy here...
The "Aussie Bonsai Forum" has more details, and seems to be the source of the in ground technique. I know Anthony enough to know he doesn't leave out information, and notes any alterations in his approach, where he mindfully feels neccesary...

So I fully trust and believe him.

If he used a tight mesh where the roots could not escape, his ground time for trunk (and 5 branches) building would be fruitless.

As his roots would just circle and not benefit from the "free earth" that his method must utilize for success.

Anthony's ground time is Mike's bucket/ground time. A simple matter of preference to achieve similar goals.

But all this mixing of methods and improper hole sizes for situations and end goals is what leads Johnny Newbinheimer to question why his soil is falling out of the container!

It Depends Johnny....
It depends!

If we simple asked that question RN has us asking....

"Why are we doing something"

Anything! Everything!

We can easily figure this stuff out for ourselves.......
And like WP says in my quote....
Spend energy creating more artistic bonsai.

Sorce

 

[Vance Wood]

Ah I see where the confusion lays.

You wrote in your post colanders and collected trees: With a design like Vance's boxes where the screen is directly at the outside and the entire outside edge can dry, though the roots cannot escape, (or at least not thru my 'window screen'), it is still a balanced airpruning. This statement is not true. The roots can escape, in-fact it is important that they can. It is important that the roots can escape and attempt to escape where the ends are exposed to both light and air causing the the auxins at the ends of the roots to retreat down line and stimulate roots that are not exposed to air and or light. The Ficus you showed had roots coming out the bottom but the bottom was not exposed to either light or air.

 

[Vance Wood]

I will not be using mesh again in my colanders. Too much work.

Not to mention unnecessary. Everybody seems to think they have to re-invent the wheel.

 

[Adair M]

@Anthony is the "in ground" guy here...
The "Aussie Bonsai Forum" has more details, and seems to be the source of the in ground technique. I know Anthony enough to know he doesn't leave out information, and notes any alterations in his approach, where he mindfully feels neccesary...

So I fully trust and believe him.

If he used a tight mesh where the roots could not escape, his ground time for trunk (and 5 branches) building would be fruitless.

As his roots would just circle and not benefit from the "free earth" that his method must utilize for success.

Anthony's ground time is Mike's bucket/ground time. A simple matter of preference to achieve similar goals.

But all this mixing of methods and improper hole sizes for situations and end goals is what leads Johnny Newbinheimer to question why his soil is falling out of the container!

It Depends Johnny....
It depends!

If we simple asked that question RN has us asking....

"Why are we doing something"

Anything! Everything!

We can easily figure this stuff out for ourselves.......
And like WP says in my quote....
Spend energy creating more artistic bonsai.

Sorce

Also...

May I remind everyone of the source of the technique? And the original purpose of the technique?

It was to grow SHOHIN Japanese Black Pines in as little time as possible, and for those Shohin to have decent sized trunks with low, developed branches, and have rootballs that will be able to go into Shohin pots.

Please read that paragraph (a run on sentence, actually) again.

Look at all the goals: “as little time as possible”. “Decent sized trunks”. “Developed, low, branches”. “Small rootballs”. “Shohin”.

Most of all the goals are mutually exclusive.

Shohin pots are what, 6 inches wide and 2 inches deep? So, our finished tree needs to have feeder roots very close to the base of the trunk. The “air pruning” effect of the colander aids in that effort. Letting roots escape the colander allows the tree to develop its fine feeder roots far from the trunk, and they will be eventually be cut off. The roots close to the trunk will not function as feeders, they become pipelines. Later, when it’s time to put the tree into a Shohin pot, there will be few feeder roots, but lots of heavy pipeline roots. So... we have defeated the purpose of using a colander!

Next: we want branches close to the soil. The article’s method of seedling cutting is very effective at this. Left on its own, a JBP will extend its trunk from between the roots and the first place branches can form to be around 6 to 8 inches! Maybe even more! It’s really hard to make a Shohin size tree ( max 8 inches tall) if the first branch is 6 inches above the roots! Seedling cuttings, eliminate that. It’s possible to have very low branches.

Remember that JBP Shohin are usually displayed on the top of a Shohin box stand. As such that top shelf is above the eye level of a lot of the viewers. Which, if the tree had high branches, most would would see the underside of the tree’s branches. Having low branches instead, artificially low in fact, makes the tree look “normal”!

Now... add to all that... that article was originally published in Japanese. It was translated into Spanish. Then, finally, from Spanish into English. No one knows if the translations introduced some errors. The illustrations include one tree with a remarkable trunk that was said to be 8 years old. Unfortunately, no be has been able to replicate that tree in that amount of time. I suspect the tree is actually older than 8 years.

Since that article was published, many have experimented with the technique and various variations. Seedling cuttings have proven to be very effective in creating trees to have well developed radial nebari and low branches.

The colander method appears to keep a working rootball with feeders close to the trunk, and works well for pines. The trouble with colanders is they are relatively deep, so they don’t inhibit downward growing roots.

These techniques do not apply to all species nor to all trees within a species. It all defends...

 

[sorce]

Ah I see where the confusion lays.

You wrote in your post colanders and collected trees: With a design like Vance's boxes where the screen is directly at the outside and the entire outside edge can dry, though the roots cannot escape, (or at least not thru my 'window screen'), it is still a balanced airpruning. This statement is not true. The roots can escape, in-fact it is important that they can. It is important that the roots can escape and attempt to escape where the ends are exposed to both light and air causing the the auxins at the ends of the roots to retreat down line and stimulate roots that are not exposed to air and or light. The Ficus you showed had roots coming out the bottom but the bottom was not exposed to either light or air.

I appreciate you taking the time to bring that full circle.
That is the one peice of information that I needed.

I wonder if you don't have a close up picture of a side...?

You get no circling roots at all?

I'm getting the feeling we are talking about many different sizes of "mesh" where small increments make significant differences, depending on the tree, conditions blah etc...

I am quite interested in this topic ....obviously!

Digging it!

Sorce

 

[Vance Wood]

The size of the mesh is irrelevant unless everything falls through it. Look at a window screen, that is the size of my screen. I use a product called pet screen, it is a bit more durable than regular old window screen and not as dangerous to handle and cut as the old aluminum window screen which was the first source of material.