Photo from Apartment Therapy - Chicago
It was good to see one of the bloggers at Apartment Therapy posting about her mom's sub-irrigated (aka self-watering) bucket planter. That's progress!
There are some DIY details left out. If you want to fill them in, head on over to Green Roof Growers in Chicago. Heidi and Art are the mavens of SIP (Sub-irrigated Planter) buckets. Start here. You'll also find much more of value. Read about Bruce's tote-box planters and Russ's rooftop EarthBoxes. These folks are the real deal and are doing much good work. We need many more like them on the web.
this is a question to ANYBODY OUT THERE that grows plants OTHER THAN veggies in SIPs:
Has anybody tried ROSES in a SIP? Blueberries, dwarf fruit trees, grape vines in SIPs.
Just curious.
Posted by: camille lawrence | July 08, 2009 at 09:41 PM
Hi Camile, in my experience over the past 30 years you can grow ***any*** terrestrial plant in sub-irrigated planters. The key is that the plant must be growing in a light artificial soil mix that has good capillarity. It must wick well. Native soil (dirt) and sandy mixes do not wick well. A good learning lesson for me was growing citrus in SIPs a number of years ago. They failed not because of capillary action but because they were grown by an outdoor plant nursery using a heavy sandy soil mix common to "outdoor" plants from most home improvement stores and garden centers.
If you pot up plants like these into a good wicking mix, you will most likely create an interface between the nursery mix and the good wicking mix and the plant will fail due to improper/inadequate water uptake.
With small plants you could wash off the mix and repot the plant in a light artificial mix that wicks well. Try it!
Posted by: Greenscaper Bob | July 09, 2009 at 08:43 PM