Inside Urban Green International

A Soda Bottle SIP With An On-Off Switch

This is an original working prototype of a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) device I invented about thirty years ago. With little belief in the receptivity of the marketplace at the time, I chose not to patent and market it. Had I gotten a patent it would now be expired. Eventually someone did discover the same idea and I believe there is a patent.

The objective was to design a more cost effective and universal vacuum-sensor system that would work in any watertight container. The system works. I used if for a wide array of plants in my home, including specimen Ficus benjamina trees.

With advances in plastic molding technology, perhaps it is worth producing these things today. Anyone interested?

Sock It To Me!

Recycled socks make excellent soda bottle SIP covers ("cloth cachepots"). This one year old Ficus benjamina cost next to nothing. The plant was propagated from cuttings rooted in the same planter about one year ago. The soda bottle SIPs are free and you help the environment. The polished pebbles cost just pennies.

There are single socks and socks with holes just waiting for a higher calling in life. This is it! It's their big chance! You can help them. 

Incidentally, the Ficus is the same houseplant shown in this prior post.

Clearly The Best Way To Grow Houseplants

The same plant (right-hand photo) converted to expanded clay pebble hydroculture.

I probably haven’t heard all of the lame reasons for growing houseplants in clay or opaque plastic pots but I’ve heard a lot of them over the years. Pretzel logic and ignorance know no bounds.

By now, you likely know that I advocate repurposed (recycled) soda/pop bottle planters as clearly (pun intended) the best way to grow houseplants. They are also the best plant science learning aid that I know of.

Hydro-conversion, Hydroculture How Toos

These Ficus benjamina trees are growing in expanded clay pebbles (aka hydroculture). The planters are bottom sections of recycled pop bottles. They are what would normally be the reservoir section of the pop bottle planters. They could just as well be housed in any other recycled plastic container. My preference, however, is clear plastic so I can see exactly what is going on. 

With hydroculture, there is no need for a wick and reservoir. The pebbles provide all the structure that is needed. The pebbles are porous and provide good capillary action. There is also enough space between them to create a sufficient supply of water (and oxygen) in the planter. 

Incidentally, these little Ficus trees are in recovery from near death when they were in temporary storage last year. Sometimes it's easier to grow a new plant versus reviving one that has gone through trauma. It can take a long time to recover. These little trees are now on their way to full recovery. I'll post photos of them again somewhere down the road. 

Pop Bottle Planters - In my experience, it works better to use just the recycled pop bottle bottoms when planting in expanded clay pebbles. The neck of the bottle is too narrow to get good wicking action when using pebbles. 

Six Month Old Ficus Produces a New Tree

Only 6 months old from rooted cuttings.

The Ficus benjamina above was propagated from a small bundle of cuttings. They were rooted in a sub-irrigated (aka "self-watering) planter (SIP) made from a repurposed soda (pop) bottle only six months ago.

I pruned it today and concealed the soda bottle SIP inside a ceramic cachepot from IKEA as shown below.

The cuttings will be propagated the same way and produce yet another tree. So the cycle continues. There are now seventy trees in the collection and counting.

Only 6 months old from rooted cuttings

The Tomorrow Garden From Valcent

What a cool product, but not available here in the U.S....at least not yet. We're going to hear a lot more about the U.K. company Valcent in the coming year. Stay tuned!

via www.youtube.com

The Tomorrow Garden™ range of micropropagated (edit. aka tissue culture) plant kits is unique: the plants are packed in bags with nutrient gel and supplied complete with compost, biodegradable pot and growing biome. They are supplied in award-winning gift packaging.

The next step for this Tomorrow Garden African Violet should be a repurposed pop/soda bottle sub-irrigation planter (SIP).

Capillary Action Cactus

Conventional wisdom says that you need a clay pot to grow cactus. As we know, conventional wisdom is often wrong as it is in this case. This clay pot was previously home to this Birds Nest Sansevieria. Regular readers of this blog know for sure that I would not grow any plant in a drain hole pot. No Martha devote here. I am, however, a big fan of recycled pop/soda bottle planters.

The cactus (is it an Echinocactus?) is living in the clay pot but it's growing in a recycled pop/soda bottle sub-irrigated planter (SIP, aka "self-watering). I can hear the chorus from the peanut gallery saying, "You can't do that”. They continue by saying that self watering pots are only for moisture loving plants like Peace Lilies (Spathiphyllum). Not true.

This cactus has been growing in a pop bottle SIP since September 2007. Using the weight method of watering (using a scale) it has been amazing to observe how little water it uses. Think biofeedback. Use a scale and your plants can communicate with you.

There is no way that you can feed water to a plant like this using the top watering drench and drain method. Using capillary action, the plant receives water with science lab accuracy tuned to its precise needs related to its environment.

I wonder how many cacti and succulents are killed each year by drain hole watering malpractice. A more significant question is how many plants of all types are killed each year by this seemingly intuitive but malpractice.

Ficus Trees Multiplied

As you can probably tell, these Ficus trees are not on the floor of a greenhouse. Look below after the jump.

There are now more than 50 of them growing in the CuGreen plant lab. It is rather amazing to know that these desktop trees were propagated from four small bags of cuttings starting about a year and a half ago. Read the back story here.

There is no special equipment here. The light gardens are Inter-Metro type storage racks from Costco and the artificial lighting is supplied from inexpensive shop lights (4’) using ordinary 40-watt fluorescent tubes. The racks are located in east facing windows so they also receive natural light during the day.

The planters are made from recycled pop/soda bottles. To encourage rooting they are covered with clear plastic deli containers to start. It typically takes 3-4 weeks to root the cuttings and the deli containers are then removed.

These seven Sansevieria plants were propagated using the same system. Who knows how many new plants will be propagated from these plants over the next year or so. I will post the progress.

Multiplying Sansevieria: Green Desk Plants

Margaret Sheri, Parent Coordinator (and school garden organizer), at PS 102 gave me this Birds-nest Sansevieria (Sansevieria trifasciata 'Hahnii').

Now there are seven of them growing new roots in recycled 2.0 pop/soda bottle planters. Soon they will go back to the school and grow on the shelves of their new light garden which will produce "green desk plants" for classrooms.

The children in PS 102 will quickly learn some plant science basics and the benefits of sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). While doing this, they will also learn about repurposing plastic bottles into objects of significant value.

New: Recycled Pop Bottle Planters 2.0

Click for larger sizes on Flickr

Recycled pop/soda bottle planters are the best way that I know of to learn how to grow and maintain plants in containers. I’ve justifiably called them the Rosetta Stones of urban greenscaping.

The only thing that has bothered me about these sub-irrigated (aka "self-watering) planters is their height that makes them more difficult to conceal in a cachepot.

The simple solution is to cut off the neck of the bottle to reduce the height of the section that holds the plant. I used a hot knife heated over my gas stove. Doing this also requires lowering the height of the reservoir section.

You can see the significant difference in the photo above. The pop bottle planter 2.0 on the left now fits nicely into a ceramic planter like this one from IKEA. Incidentally, a standard 6” grow pot will not fit into this planter but the 2.0 pop bottle planter does.  

I would definitely recommend the 2.0 planters for all indoor plants. It will not work as well for outdoor plants in sunlight because the capacity of the reservoir is reduced.

Look for detailed instructions and an update of this Flickr photo set in the near future.