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When the rain is too much? 2 years 7 months ago #72175

  • Albas
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Hello.

Yesterday it started to rain and haven't stopped since then, I noticed that a few pots were filled with water, mostly the ones I reppoted last week, by the time it looked like it was draining well, however since the rain has been constant and some times heavier some pots were looking like buckets of water.

The rain has been so much, that even the grass patio has not being capable to drain.
I took most of the pots out of the rain.

Should I worry about reppot them again adding more rough sand when the rain stops and it dries?

Do you guys have this problem sometimes? I mean on training pots, not bonsai pots.
Will 2 or 3 days like this be harmfull for the roots?

By the way, we got an alert on the region of possible floods, and possibly 100 mm/day rainfall till tomorrow.

P.S.: Typo on the title can't be edited, non native english speaker alert... xD

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Last edit: Post by Albas.

When the rain is too much? 2 years 7 months ago #72178

  • Ivan Mann
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The drainage pot should have holes big enough that water doesn't accumulate. If the water is not coming through the holes then there is something blocking and you need to correct that. Maybe you can poke a wire or thin stick through the hole and create drainage.

I didn't see the same problem in one pot and the tree drowned and died. Actually, the seedling drowned, which really mattered because it was an apple seed the 4 year old grandson wanted to turn into a bonsai. Ooops. Fortunately I had more apples.

P.S. Don't worry about an occasional slight error in English. I have noticed that the non native English speakers make fewer typing errors that I make unless I proof read very carefully.

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When the rain is too much? 2 years 7 months ago #72184

  • Albas
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Thanks Ivan!
I think I mixed the soil slightly wrong, fortunately the ones that acumulated more water, are all young trees, and probably won't bother much if I remix their soil, specially at the entrance of spring (once it dries, of course).

The more problematic to remix/repot would be a "Sekijoju" I just buried with the rock, but I don't want to take the risk of root rot...

But as I said, it was so much rain, that even the ground soil itself wasn't being able to drain that much water in time.

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Last edit: Post by Albas.

When the rain is too much? 2 years 7 months ago #72206

  • Ivan Mann
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Something else to watch for is poorly made pots.

I had a real nice elm forest, in a plastic training pot, about 3-4 cm deep space for soil, filled with mostly lava rock and pumice, about a quarter akadama. Sounds perfect.

It almost died a year ago when we had torrents of rain days in a row and I saw the leaves turning yellow. The bottom of the pot was bowl shapes downwards, with drainage holes around the sides but nothing in the bottom, so there was a lot of water standing there. Easy fix - I took the trees out and their roots were all balled up so they came out easily, drilled several holes in the bottom, put the trees back, and they recovered fine.

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