Grow Boxes and Training Pots by Will Heath

Will takes a close look at grow boxes vs. training pots. He discusses the benefits of each and the ease of building one yourself. The article also comes with a set of instructions!!!

Will,

Thanks for the great article. It really clarified the theory and practice of grow boxes. I have had many misconceptions cleared up. Guess I couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Thanks again,

Tom

Nice article Will as I would expect from you.
I just have one question to ask of you. I could be thinking the wrong way but would it be better to grow the tree in pond basket or Vance's nice looking training pots to get as many feeder roots as possible and then transfer into a shallow grow box to work on the nebari and get the roots more horizontal to be placed into a bonsai pot? I tend to get confused at times and maybe I am missing the point here but to me this is how I do it. Grow pot then to shallow grow box.

Thanks Will for the great article. Just wish I could write as well as you. You ought to see my keyboard the backspace button is worn out

A Friend in bonsai
John

Will...I used home-built grow boxes for many years. One thing noticed which is NOT in the best interests of any resident tree is the leaching of nutrients by rotting wood on the inside walls of the box.
The problem is that the rotting process pulls some of the nutrients in the soil away from the roots, effectively "starving" the tree. In my case a very old collected azalea showed clear discoloration in it's leaves, indicating stress of some sort. When the plant was lifted from the box to examine the roots, the problem was revealed.
Funny thing though...I also grew a "shore pine" in the same sort of grow box...it seemed fine. My only explanation was that somehow the mychorriza had something to do with "buffering" the root system from the rotting box leaching effect.

Have you heard of this from other folks?
Flex / 4MAAT

fwhou wrote::? Will...I used home-built grow boxes for many years. One thing noticed which is NOT in the best interests of any resident tree is the leaching of nutrients by rotting wood on the inside walls of the box.
The problem is that the rotting process pulls some of the nutrients in the soil away from the roots, effectively "starving" the tree. In my case a very old collected azalea showed clear discoloration in it's leaves, indicating stress of some sort. When the plant was lifted from the box to examine the roots, the problem was revealed.
Funny thing though...I also grew a "shore pine" in the same sort of grow box...it seemed fine. My only explanation was that somehow the mychorriza had something to do with "buffering" the root system from the rotting box leaching effect.

Have you heard of this from other folks?
Flex / 4MAAT

I have found that a home built grow box will last several seasons, but when the corners start to come apart, it's time to build anew. Even cedar starts to look bad in about 3 years. I haven't actually noticed the leaching effect but believe you. I fertilized very heavily for anything in a grow box, so it would be hard to notice.

Chris & Will...The plastic pond basket "grow box" has a lot of appeal. There was a good article in the Stone Lantern "Pines" book, about a pine grower (Kusido Matsuo), who grows some very impressive pines in colanders, which are just round pond baskets.
This container allows maximum air to the roots, and provides very good drainage, resulting in excellent root development.
FYI.
Flex / 4MAAT

Will, Chris et al you may have noticed that we in Australia have access to styrene boxes obtained free from our supermarkets, courtesy of the produce departments. They come complete with drainage slots and all we have to do is add insect screen to cover the holes. We also can obtain styrene boxes (rectangular as well, which Broccoli comes in) and have lids without drainage slots which are used to contain bonsai mixes. These boxes last indefinitely which is a great blessing for us and we are re-cycling responsibly. This takes nothing away from what you do but shows what is obtainable in other countries. The downside is that what we use may not be bio-degradable in the long term as timber is but we delay it going to our landfill a bit more in a small way.

Ash

Hi Rick, Will covered all aspects of growing on hardware, which were, grow boxes, training boxes and pond baskets. The reason I brought up styrene boxes was from a grow box perspective and of course forgot to mention that they are lightweight as well.

Someone from another region of the world may have some other apparatus pertinent to their locality that they find really useful too.


Ash