Ikea training bonsai pots, how to

I am always looking to improve on what i use for my bonsai. I use a lot of plastic pots for growing my bonsai. However, when my trees start to develop but are not yet ready for a bonsai pot I like to use terracotta pots. They are heavy, they lose more water than plastic pots, and I like the way they look. The problem is that I could only find tall ceramic pots when what I needed was low wide ones.

My wife dragged me to Ikea one day. I hate going there. I feel like a lab rat running through a maze. At Ikea you start at the top floor. You walk around what seems like a maze picking up items as you go. To be honest my favorite level is the bottom one. It's not my favorite because it's the end, or because they sell food there. It's my favorite because it has all the gardening stuff.

So, one day my wife drags me down to Ikea. I am bored beyond belief. Finally, I see that we are about to go to the register. I spot orange in the distance in between the indoor palm fronds. I go there and notice a pot with a tray. The best part is it is only 3.00 U.S. I leave the pot and take the tray. The cashier tells me that I have to buy both. O.K., whatever. Ill jump what ever hoop I need to buy the tray.

The one negative is that it is a drainage tray so it had no hole. Well, that's easily taken care of.

For this demonstration my beautiful daughter will be assisting me.

As you can see the problem is that there is no drainage hole.

A masonry bit will do the trick. When you make a small hole you can see through turn it around and finish the job.

There you have it. One hole in one pot. Now you can grow and develop a bonsai tree in it.

All done

The pots come in three sizes. The one that we used as an example is the smallest one. I do use the bigger original pot. I grow seeds in them. I hope this helps further the art of bonsai in some small way. Cheers.

A few inexpensive things to help with the bonsai budget

Bonsai can be a pretty expensive hobby if you want it to be. I don't have a lot of expendable income so I try to make it as inexpensive as possible. After all it all I do it for fun. I do however, want to present the bonsai  in the best light possible. I do not want my bonsai to look shabby or unkempt.

A store my brother introduced me to last year is Daiso Japan. This store has tools to art supplies, snacks, to slippers and everything inbetween

Outside

Inside

The base price for almost everything in the store is $1.50 U.S. There are things that are more expensive however, these are marked as such. The section that I visit the most is the gardening section. My favorite products from that section are as following:

These pots are about 6 inches wide. They are made from terracotta and have a glaze/ The two shapes that I have seen are rectangular and oval. They tend to be colored on the cool side. Are these pots show worthy? Of course not. Would I use these as training pots? Oh heck yeah. I use terracotta pots for many things. Bonsai terracotta pots are great for training pots. Or when you want to give a bonsai away but do not want to give up the pot now you have a solution.

You can get three sizes of aluminum wire for for the standard Daiso price. I did not notice that my picture was just of two sizes. The sizes are 1mm, 3mm, and i believe 5mm.  This is wire intended for use on plants. I have used it and found no difference to the stuff I buy at the bonsai nurseries. The only drawback is that sometimes it's in short supply.

I bought two different size sieves. A one for large particles and one for smaller ones to go through. These are good for sifting through hard soil materials to get the desired size for soil recipes.

This round beauty is the mesh that the japanese love to put in the holes in there pots. It is small and rigid. I find it easier to use than the softer white stuff. Also, Depending on the size of the pot I do not have to use wire to keep it in place.

They have an aisle with saki cups and teacups. These are very pretty and with a masonry bit can be transformed into pots. But that's a subject for a different post. Cheers.