Best advice - drill holes in it or get another container. Even when using containers WITH holes - the shallower the container, the more critical drainage is. Additionally, all containers w/o holes almost automatically guarantee an exponential decrease in potential vitality - if not from over-watering issues then from accumulating salts from fertilizers and tap-water.

That said, I do have a (miniature) landscape planting more than 5 years old in a very shallow tray with no holes, but I've been religious about watering very carefully ...... and with only distilled water or water from the dehumidifier ...... and I've used only fish emulsion as a fertilizer, which is not my first choice.

Al

Hi I use a plastic pot for the plant to be planted in and then just set that pot in the ceramic pot with small gravel in the bottom and plants don't tip so easy...I like the ceramic pots but I can't keep plants alive in them so I just use them as pot holders....just a idea...linda

For how you describe your wish to grow a plant, I suggest you look into forcing bulbs. The usual: daffodils, tulips, crocus, galanthus, dutch and reticulata irises, grape hyacinth, et al.
The time though is nigh....if you wish Christmas bloom, the process has to be started NOW.

Bulbs require a cold period before they are introduced to light. Twelve to fifteen weeks is the usual period of cooling.

Later on, the tender narcissus--paper whites--will be available. These are forced without cooling.

A wide ceramic dish is used with pebbles acting as the drainage area.
There are ample articles describing the methods used for forcing--here and in other journals.

I would suggest and cactus are happy with shallow soil as they’re roots are shallow and need hardly any watering.

Very much after the fact now almost 12 years later, but unless you are growing carnivorous or other bog plants, just don't do it!! Even cacti and succulents will need water but they also require very fast drainage - more so than most other common houseplants.

Follow Al's advice - he will not steer you wrong! Very few plants will tolerate a lack of free drainage for long.

"I would suggest and cactus are happy with shallow soil..."

Maybe with extraordinary care, but I'd rather use a plant that can tolerate a little standing water for a short time if one makes a mistake. I've kept a schefflera in a beautiful Chinese pot with no drainage holes for years, but I have to change the soil more often than I would in other pots and be far more careful with watering than otherwise. It's been about five years again and it's time. Given that the pot is huge and heavy, it's not my idea of fun.

It can certainly be done, but it's not as easy as it is with other pots with drainage holes. And it's not something I'd recommend for any plant or any person who's not pretty experienced and not willing to monitor the situation.

Bekwud - Unless you use a medium that holds very little excess (perched) water, cacti are less likely to be happy in a shallower container than those deeper, as illustrated by this image:

The shaded part represents the fraction of the medium occupied by perched water (PW), and would be 100% saturated with water that resists gravity and will not drain without taking additional steps to force it to drain. If any given medium supports a perched water table (PWT), the maximum ht of that PWT will be the same in all pots, regardless of size (particularly depth) or shape. Note that the % of medium free of PW decreases in a direct relation with the ht of the container.

Let's imagine the image on the right reflects the medium in the bonsai pot is 3" deep, and the depth of the PWT is 2". If you only filled the pot with 2" of medium, then watered to container capacity (the point where the medium holds as much water as it possibly can), after the pot has stopped draining, you would be able to see water glistening at the very top of the medium as the medium would be 100% saturated. So you can see that while proper aeration/drainage is always critical, it becomes increasingly critical as depth of the soil column decreases.

Too, that a species of plant typically produces a shallow root system in situ, doesn't mean you need to provide for it a shallow pot, or treat it differently (insofar as depth of the container) than other genera/species of plants known for being deep-rooted. The habit is a reaction to cultural conditions, not something genetically encoded by Mother Nature. As long as there is a favorable ratio of air:water toward the bottom of the pot, plants that typically grow on shallow root systems will happily colonize the full depth of even the deepest of pots.

Al