Why do bonsai pots have large drainage holes ?

[markyscott]

Okay Scott,
if you are still around, an image for air-pot growing, save our effort was even more extreme.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MzzLbZHuf...Y/DTyMj9QbVm4/s1600/DSC_4270_NEF_embedded.jpg

http://englishbonsai.blogspot.com/

Good Day
Anthony

Of course air pots will produce root ramification. That is what they were designed to do - kill the apical root tip to prevent encircling roots. They also slow canopy growth rate. If you learn proper repotting techniques and grow your tree in good soil, you sill also prevent encircling roots and produce a lot of fine feeders.

Air pots work great for the nursery industry, folks can decide on their own if they work well for them for bonsai. I use them for conifers I'm growing out.

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

By the way, Bonsai Hunter, BonsaiBardo is Paul Kellum, a good friend of mine. He does indeed use airpots for some of his bonsai. Not because of how quickly they drain, but because of the "air pruning". He does use a fast draining soil: equal parts akadama, pumice and lava (scoria).

Thanks for correcting, Adair. I agree. Since the thread was about drainage holes, I wanted to stay focused on the that. If we put the same soil mix of same volume into an air-pot vs a 2 holed ceramic pot, i hope you agree the mesh floor will drain out faster and hence also, allow more air into the root zone. I merely wanted to try blend the outer shell of a ceramic pot and keep the floor like a mesh or as close to it as far as the ceramic material permits. I agree with some concerns raised and disagree with others. Maybe I will make a prototype with cement and try it out or find a potter who can make custom stuff. Appreciate your inputs.

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

Who has? I have. They are weaker. Frost proof is a buzz phrase by the way. It does not mean freeze proof, which no ceramic on earth is. If ice can explode steel pipes it will explode your bonsai pot, unless you are using well drained soil.

I am NOT against well draining soil. I am against pots that do not drain well. Same soil mix of same volume will drain differently based on the container design. The soil + pot has to be treated as a combo. I doubt you will agree. So lets leave it that.

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

Yes me. I have used ... bit for you..

Thanks Michael for the detailed response. I agree with some points but disagree with others.

 

[M. Frary]

. The soil + pot has to be treated as a combo

I use the same substrate in colanders as I do bonsai pots. No difference in drainage at all.

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

I use the same substrate in colanders as I do bonsai pots. No difference in drainage at all.

I will be glad to shoot a video and show you the difference Maybe Sunday.

 

[M. Frary]

I will be glad to shoot a video and show you the difference Maybe Sunday.

That's O.K.
I don't worry about such things since I started using an inorganic fast draining substrate.

 

[PiñonJ]

i hope you agree the mesh floor will drain out faster and hence also, allow more air into the root zone.

No, this is not correct. Faster drainage doesn't provide more air to the roots. That is a function of the soil composition and the aeration layer (as I mentioned in my previous post).

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

Just wondering ...



Pots with square / rectangular holes do exist but very rare.

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

@Bonsai Hunter,
I admire your gusto ------- a doctor by any chance?

Hi Anthony, that handcarved Pumice pot looks cool. I am just an artist from the animation / vfx industry, who questions a lot, gets labelled a lot by people who do not have good answers

 

[Bonsai Hunter]

Some yokel from halfway around the world with one year experience growing bonsai and a backyard washbasin can tell someone whose worked in the field for 30 years, has a PhD and several patents along with a dozen or so papers in peer-reviewed journals and couple of book chapters he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about + Just one of a thousand newbies posting on the internet who believe some truth has been revealed to them that all who have come before have missed. This one's a classic: if you put more holes in a pot the water will fall out faster. Amazing. Scott

Scott, your arrogance & lack of understanding of pot designs are really laughable I see the total confusion in your grow pot design & in some of your silly explanations. You are right, you have nothing sensible to offer to me. Appreciate your attempt. Thanks. And please shove that condescending attitude...into a pot. Might be good for the plants.

I imagine, when the wright brothers made their historic flight, all the "experts"would have shown the same arrogance - "How dare those 2 bicycle mechanics try to fly when we the experts have told it is physically impossible ? What audacity !"

Or NASA & Russians telling Spacex - "What makes you think you can land a rocket vertically for reuse ? Thats not how its done, kiddo ! It HAS to be ditched in the sea ! Stop misleading people & copy us !"

A few years ago, after getting sick of camera worshipping friends, I did a talk on photography and smashed the myth of the camera - the magic is in the software, not hardware ! I had just a few years of experience at the time. Wasn't too difficult to pull down the shorts of Nat Geo photographers. Watch it, its an interesting slideshow.

National Geographic Photography Secrets - The magic is in the software, not hardware.
https://get.google.com/albumarchive...e_1m3A_wo6?source=pwa&authKey=CJjEteaRt9Kw1AE

But what do I know ? I am just a dumb newbie If I was in your city i would love to do a simple growth
challenge with you, with seeds or saplings. We both use the same soil & amount, you in your 1-2 hole ceramic bonsai pot and me in a colander or a plastic pot with multiple holes. I know I will have better growth & root system. You will end up with rootbound tree, and less fibrous root system.

Yes, manual root pruning solves the circling problem (after the problem has developed) but why create the problem at all, in the first place ? Is prevention better or cure ? Besides, manual pruning wastes lot of root mass & growth time bcos of the need to keep roots short. Air-pruning of roots, on the other hand, keeps the roots not only short but also more densely packed and wastage is minimized during repotting. It works 24x7x365 unlike your once a year traditional repotting system.

BOTH pot & soil play a role, not just soil. Maybe, if you did PHd in pot design also, you would know that I easily understood the concept, hence a PhD wasn't needed.

 

[Solange]

So... You are trying to prove a point then?

 

[Solange]

I've exposed your hypocrisy! Lol

 

[aml1014]

This thread is quite funny. I have so much to say about soil and containers working in the nursery business for some years now, but this guy just doesn't want to here it, because he's one of the people who think he's right about something that was discovered decades ago.
Your original argument was about drainage, right? Then you switched out of nowhere to air-pruning, two different things.
Some people's children
That's my nothingness of a contribution to a nothingness thread, now I'll sit back and continue watching people make a fool of themselves.

Aaron

 

[Solange]

It is funny. Can I just say - before Vinny invents a jet powered drain system - that sometimes slower pot drainage is good. I mean, I do like my substrate to actually get saturated, and not have dry spots because all the water drained so fast it didn't properly wet every area.

 

[Dav4]

I like puppies.

 

[Adair M]

Thanks for correcting, Adair. I agree. Since the thread was about drainage holes, I wanted to stay focused on the that. If we put the same soil mix of same volume into an air-pot vs a 2 holed ceramic pot, i hope you agree the mesh floor will drain out faster and hence also, allow more air into the root zone. I merely wanted to try blend the outer shell of a ceramic pot and keep the floor like a mesh or as close to it as far as the ceramic material permits. I agree with some concerns raised and disagree with others. Maybe I will make a prototype with cement and try it out or find a potter who can make custom stuff. Appreciate your inputs.

It makes no diffetence if it takes the pot 30 seconds or two minutes to drain the excess water. The amount of aeration is the same.

You are confusing the concepts of air pruning with air pruning. Two separate issues.

If you really want to grow seedlings fast, neither a bonsai pot nor a collapsed nor an air pot should be used. Growing in the ground is the fastest!

That said, fastest isn't necessarily best. Fast growing creates long internodes, and coarse thick roots. Neither of which are desirable bonsai characteristics. We want short internodes, a tapering trunk, lots of feeder roots close to the trunk.

Frequent repotting does indeed slow the tree down. But it allows us the opportunity to keep the nebari balanced, prevent a "one-sided" root system, create a shallow radial rootball, prevent crossing roots, etc. There are techniques used to enhance the nebari, such as the Ebihara Technique that Scott documented in a thread here. The colander method for growing pines is particularly effective when growing Shohin since they will need to be in small pots. It's less effective when trying to create a larger tree. Because to get a large tree, the roots need to be allowed to run.

Some people start their seedling pines in collanders to get a good nebari started, then move them into the ground for a couple years to bulk up, then dig them up and put them back into collanders to rebuild a rootsystem close to the trunk.

The purpose of a bonsai pot is NOT to be used to grow bonsai. It's to maintain a bonsai. Bonsai pots restrict root growth. Helping to keep the tree small.

The next best thing to use if you can't grow in the ground is a grow box. Oversized do the roots can extend.

Bonsai Hunter, lighten up on the attitude. You've only been doing bonsai for a year. You think you "know". You don't. You don't know that you don't know. I've been doing bonsai 45 years. I'm still learning new things.

Scott is a professional geologist. He knows more about drainage than anyone else I know.

One year in, you need to listening to others, not trying to change things.

 

[M. Frary]

. You are right, you have nothing sensible to offer to me

But everything he has posted makes sense to the rest of us.
You're the right one,the rest of the world is wrong.
Heck,we haven't even seen one of your trees yet. Do you even have any. Just one to prove to us you know what you're talking about?
You see here,words are only just words.
We need to see the trees so we know you know what you're talking about.
Scott has some great trees. He also takes classes from one of the premiere bonsai masters on the planet.
Let alone the schooling Scott has on this subject.
They're all wrong and you're right?

 

[Paradox]

Scott, your arrogance & lack of understanding of pot designs are really laughable .

Oh.... the Irony!

1 year newb knows more than people with pHDs in soil science, people growing bonsai for decades whether professional or not.
The only thing this guy has contributed are two off the wall threads where he tells everyone that after one whole year, hes got it all figured out.

Then he wants to challenge those people to a "growing contest" where each person uses different pots....Hello...... how is that going to prove anything? The results could be different simply due to the differences in watering, rainfall, sun exposure etc of both places. Unless the treatments (pots) are right next to each other on the same bench experiencing the same conditions all the time, the results wont mean a damn thing. THATS science.
I just cant and wont take anything this guy says seriously.

 

[Solange]

I agree with most of your post Mike, but can we collectively stop asking to see someone's trees as if it actually is a way to quantify knowledge or ability? Anyone can buy a nice tree, and people can understand soil and pot physics without ever actually having grown anything, if they are willing. Also, never has someone shown a tree under these circumstances and the rest of the posters swung their opinions because the tree was so great xyz must know what they are doing lol. Never. Knowledge of a topic does not necessarily equate to great trees, and great trees don't necessarily equate to knowledge of a topic.