Should I change the container?

16 years ago

I will be receiving two fig trees next week. On is the English Brown Turkey and the other is Celeste. The BT will be in 5 gallon pot and the Celeste will be in 3 gallon pot. They will be dormant. Should I change the soil for them when I get them? I thought about planting them in a bigger container. As for the soil I know it consist of Perlite, Pine bark, cow manure and Lime mixture, BUT how much of each?

Also, I talked to Bob at Bob's fig in NJ and he recommended that I should cut some PVC pipes and place it under the tree roots. He said, its necessary for drainage. Should I do the same with my fig trees too?

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Comments (5)

tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
16 years ago
The plant almost certainly does need repotting (which includes root pruning), because nursery ops habitually only bump trees up to larger container size rather than repotting them.

You can read more about soils here, but I would leave the manure out of the soil. It would probably not be necessary to go up in container size if you prune the roots and remove the old soil. If you don't, whether you should move up in size depends on the condition of the roots and your soil choice. It's not a good thing to have dissimilar soils in the same container, so it's possible that you may run into issues in that area.

A good soil is

5 parts pine bark fines
1 part sphagnum peat
1-2 parts perlite
lime (1 tbsp/gallon of soil or 1/2 cup/cu ft.

Simply putting PVC pipe under the trees roots can do nothing for drainage unless any water collecting in the pipe has a place to drain to.

Al
nkesh099
Original Author
16 years ago
Al;

thank you for the info. So, if the soil in container drains very good, I would not need to place the PVC pipes under it? Im planning to drill few more holes in the bottom of the containers, for good drainage. Obviously they are plastic containers.
thank you
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tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
16 years ago
The PVC pipes aren't going to make any difference at all, unless I'm misunderstanding how they're supposed to be used. Use a soil that drains well & is durable enough to remain well-aerated between repots. It really doesn't matter if you have 1 hole through the bottom or 10 holes - the number of holes has no significant influence on either drainage or water retention, so use a good soil from top to bottom with no 'drainage' layers or contraptions. Your tree won't respond any differently if it takes you plant 2 minutes to stop draining as opposed to 30 seconds. If you really are worried about water retention because of a heavy soil, I can give you some tips that will help alleviate that issue.

Al
jenia
16 years ago
nkesh099,

Are you sure you aren't talking about Bill of Bill's figs rather than Bob of Bob's figs??? If so, I believe that only place he uses PVC pipe under figs is in his bottom-watering pots.

C.J.
nkesh099
Original Author
16 years ago
C.J.

Yes, I meant, Bill form Bill's figs. I know he does it for his self watering pots. I will be using a good soil as "Al" mentioned earlier above for good drainage. So, I don't think I will have any drainage problems.
Thank You for the help.