| I myself have
experienced that potsoil isn't special necessary for obtaining a good plant. So I brought
up plants for the 'Drs. M.v.d. Zee-Kruseman'-trophy for the national match of the
KNvF-regio Zuid-Gelre. For this one must brought up plants in a little round pot of 9 cm
(to this I used no sand). These plants remained four or five years in that little pot and
afterthat they had become a high of 35 cm with a crown of 30 cm, while the thickness of
the trunk was more than 1 cm. All those years they aren't repotted. Once I have inspected
the clod of one of those plants and then it was evident that 3/4 part of it was existing
of roots. Of my
fuchsia-bonsais the oldest plant is 16 years old and that bonsai is standing allready 12
years in a bonsai-bowl with a diameter of 30 cm while the hight of the soil is 4 cm. The
hight of the plant is 70 cm while the diameter of the crown measures 50 cm. In those 10
years this bonsai hasn't been out of the bonsai-bowl, while this plant grows still each
year and is plenty flowering. Well you have to place this specific plants, which have in
proportion more few soil, not full in the sun but well on a light place out of the sun.
Both examples indicate that
repotting in new potsoil is superfluous. Only to make it more easy, you adjust the pot to
the size of the plant. Also an advantage by this breeded fuchsias is that they winter free
cold, by which all roots of a hair are dying in spring, they then serve as food for the
plants.
In the roots of a hair there are
sitting namely fertilizers and they become assimilated then again as food. Naturaly this
has also dis-advantages and this you experience special by varieties which has few or no
thick main roots (see a preceding article in
this serie).
The horticulture in a glass-house
shows that potsoil is superfluous. Here they breed for example tomatoes and cucumbers in
rockwool isolation, that is well-aired but there isn't sitting food in it. The trick is
here sitting in the way of giving water and fertilizer.
Old soil, which is sitting year
after year in the pot, holds fast less water because instead there have come many roots.
That is to obviate by giving some regular water. When the soil then holds still water bad
you do a few drops of detergent in the water of the watering-can.
Over fertilizing plants the
opinions be different. My manner of fertilizing is the following. In spring I make liquid
manure of old manure out of the stable or dried grains of cow-manure. This I add to the
water in the watering-can, that I give to the plants every other week from end March till
end July. The used proportion is: one hand full grains of cow-manure to five litre of
water. This mixture is given to the plants, but they first must have then allready a humid
clod.
When the plants are going outdoors
I dig holes in the soil on about 8 cm of the trunk, and do in it Osmocote-grains (15-10-15
+ spore-elements), and this in the proportion which is standing on the packing. By plants
in pot take care that there is at least 5 à 8 cm space between the grains and the rim of
the pot. While these Osmocote-grains are working by heat you opposed a surplus of manure.
Further my plants get no longer manure, also not for 'hardening'. Only all my plants which
are standing in pots get still one week before pruning one time Chile Salpetre. This
quickly-collected nitrogen furthered the start of new growing points.
The plants go by me as late as
possible in the glass-house, by which I take care that they are standing dry. |
November
2008