It's been years since most of my nursery bought citrus has been upcanned and now they're going "on" the ground in a greenhouse along with others I've been grafting to Flying Dragon. I have the option of building 2' X 2' bottomless boxes, total height of 15" or going with Root Maker Builder material. Native soil is clay loam that the roots will eventually find. It's alkaline and calcareous. Pots will be backfilled with compost and sandy loam, open structure and slightly acidic.

Amazingly, the trees in 10 gal. pots have been producing since I upcanned them from 3 gal. The Mex Key lime must have 200 fruit after a huge recent bloom, this after losing all its leaves to a hard freeze last year. The pots were painted with a Copper Hydroxide paint called Griffin's Spin-Out for root tip pruning. Want to get the same kind of effect using rootmaker or the paint, BUT, will this Root Maker/Builder plastic hold up to about 10 years use? Shouldn't be any kind of mechanical pressure on the sides from the roots it they're pruned.

Also need to put 3 avocado trees into some kind of container, much bigger though, at least 4' X 4' W, perhaps 2' tall.

FWIW, using my tractor I ripped (fractured) my hard native soil with a subsoiler/chisel to a depth of 20" before the greenhouse was erected.

Thanks,
Mark

I have a Chandler Pummelo growing in a Root Builder container. I used the 30-inch tall roll and made a 2-ft. 3-inch diameter container. I don't know who many gallons the container is, maybe 60+ gallons. The tree has been in the container for about 1 year. I can't say how long the container will last, but I have smaller sized containers built out of Root Builder that are well over 5 years old. All of my Root Builder containers (40+) are inside of my greenhouse, and not outdoors in the elements. Anyway, it is very easy to clip the ties and apply a new roll around the root ball without much disturbance at all. All in all I would say a 10 year life outdoors would be a stretch. - Millet (476-)

Thanks for the info. Like I said, they are being planted in a greenhouse on top of ripped native clay loam so based on your experience sounds like they will last. Expensive stuff though, you wouldn't happen to have a name of a supplier? I searched and came up with one that was outrageously high.

Mark

I purchase all of my Root Maker items directly from Root Maker Corp. They sell both retail and wholesale. http://www.rootmaker.com/ Root Builder comes in either 18" high or 30" high rolls that are 100 feet long. You can make many containers, of any size you desire, from a roll. - Millet (675-),

Mark, when I made a container for my Chandler Pummelo, I used the 30" high roll of Root Maker and cut it back to 27 inches tall. You will certainly need at a minimum a 20" tall container, as 90 percent of a citrus tree's root system is in the top 20" of soil. In the Pummelo container I gave it an additional 7" in height, by cutting the roll down to 27". You can use the 30" roll and make it any height you desire. I think the taller roll offerers a lot of advantages.

Danero, sorry I do not know where Root Pruning containers are available in Europe. I know MeyerLemon who lives in Turkey, ordered a bunch of products from Root Maker and I guess he must have had them shipped from the USA to Turkey. You can ask him how he got them. Find him in the membership list and send him a PM. = Millet (457-)

Danero try here, it seems to be the same type of pots but sold from Scotland:

http://www.airpotgarden.com/store/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=catshow&ref=airpot

Email: info@airpotgarden.com

Their products are also sold by retailers on ebay if you look on there for "air pots".

I looked at buying some but they're expensive. Maybe in the future I will try some out when my trees need repotting.

Danero the Rootmaker pots and the Air Pots look to be almost identical and do the exact same job:

http://www.rootmaker.com/retail_products.php?Pageload=3#top

http://www.airpotgarden.com/store/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=catshow&ref=airpot

The Air Pots are sold from Scotland so they might be able to deliver to Romania.

I use the Air Pots from Scotland, they do deliver to Romania but shipping is really expensive, too expensive. I paid 60$ for a package weighing no more than 2kilo

Air pots are not the same with rootmakers pots , different behaviour on roots , as you can look closely

thanks

Mark, it has never crossed my mind to measure a Root Maker roll. Some how I have always thought that the tall roll was 30 inches. Therefore, after reading your above post I went out and measured my tall Root Maker roll. It is indeed exactly 34 inches tall, just as it is advertised. I also measured the smaller Root Maker rolls and they are a full 18 inches. About wasting money when I cut down a roll, maybe your right, but we are certinly not talking about much money. Besides, I wanted a 27 inch roll. - Millet (456-)