Container Gardening -- Trees

[tropheus]

I'd like to grow a red bud in a container... some resources are on the net related to growing trees in containers. Red Buds are even mentioned a few times as options.

The whole point is to keep the growth down. I love the look of the tree, I just don't need a 25' high tree with a 20' spread.

I'd actually partially plant the container in the ground, about two-thirds to three-quarters in the ground.

Anybody here have experience doing this sort of thing?

 

[Mrmyke709]

That sounds more like a raised bed than a container.
A container is portable to an extent, it can be brought in during the Winter.
If the roots are in the ground, it's going to spread.
If you have space limitations, you need a smaller tree, like maybe a Japanese Maple.

 

[tropheus]

even if in a container that is partially/fully in the ground?

I love the Japanese Maple, however, the soil requirements are too difficult for anything other than a container.

 

[Mrmyke709]

Try an evergreen sumac.
You can only control a tree's growth so much.
They look pretty cool if you can find a nicely shaped one, and they will grow on rock.

 

[cbs]

My mom just had a deck built with a large 6-7 foot deep planter/container for planting trees. The brothers and I hauled 12 yards of dirt up the deck, across the deck, and into the planters. It sucked. I have no idea how the trees will do.

 

[tropheus]

I talked with a nursery and the owner said with the appropriate sized container, a red bud will do fine. The owner said in commercial jobs with red buds, all he uses is 48" in diameter containers - fiberglass material, which can be buried to seem like there is no container.

He said that containers provide the ability to control water and soil conditions much, much better than normal.

Also, in a 48" container, a red bud will max out at 12-15' high with the same spread. That is about half sized. But, the density of the canopy will be increased.

That is exactly what I want/need.

He did say that at about the 10 year mark, the tree may need root trimming and other maintenance, but nothing that should be considered difficult.

For those of you with red buds, he also said 'wounding' your red bud in the fall will create more blooms in the spring. That I did not know.

Any other points or counterpoints are much appreciated.

 

[arroyo]

The Antique Rose Emporium in SA has a trailing redbud in a container. It looks pretty cool. So far they're still working on propagating it to the point that they can start selling them. You might want to keep that in mind for the future.
I have a bunch of redbuds in my backyard.
Could you elaborate more about wounding them to promote more blooms? What exactly should you do to them?

 

[tropheus]

natural wounding from overlapping canopies or you can whack it with a stick. Basically, if the red bud bark on the limbs is pierced in the fall, when it heals it becomes a bloom site in the spring.

The guy at the nursery said he recommends whacking the red bud branches with a yard stick

I'm not kidding.

 

[7Titles]

Putting the container in the ground will help keep the roots cooler!

 

[TXHookem]

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[tropheus]

My understanding is that the soil requirements for the Japanese Maple don't jive with the limestone in and the pH of the soil in the Austin area.

 

[Mrmyke709]

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[tropheus]

I agree. I don't think I would do that to a tree. I will say, I saw at least one website that made the same statement.

Wounding may result in more blooms in the spring, but the wounding clearly can't be good for the tree.

 

[arroyo]

I've got more redbuds than I know what to do with in my backyard. I didn't plant any of them, they just come up by themselves. I'll whack the crap out of a couple of them this fall and see what happens next spring.

 

[tropheus]

I actually feel the same way about Crepe Myrtles.

 

[Mrmyke709]

You're wrong, DWP...the ultimate trash tree is a toss-up between hackberry, sycamore, and cottonwood.
I'm going with sycamore. They're river trees that croak if not watered enough, and the leaves are huge and messy.
Redbuds are bad-***.

 

[tropheus]

hackberry takes the cake, it is the most god-awful tree on the planet.

In the right environment, cottonwoods rock. Of course in neighborhoods, they can be a nuisance, just ask the sooner on this board that wanted to poison his neighbor's cottonwood.

Near a pond, with enough water and enough space to grow and enough area for the wind to blow through (read - ranchland), cottonwoods are amazing.

I have no experience with Sycamores.

 

[K-Man]

my vote goes to hackberries. Those blooming trees along Town Lake (plum?) are small with beautiful blooms in the spring. Maybe that would be a reasonable alternative to the redbud, if you're afraid it will get too big. I wouldn't want to have to "babysit" a container tree, if I could choose a different tree that would provide similar results planted in the ground.

 

[tropheus]

plumb was second on our list. They can get quite large too. I'll spend $200 on two six foot red buds and from what I can tell, in 4' containers, I have at least 10 years before I should have any issues.

At that point, I'll either deal with them, or transplant them (i.e. give them away, which should be easy with the contained root system), and do something different.

Because I am looking for undergrowth for large, very large oak trees, the landscaping doesn't look young. So in 10 years, if I give the red buds away and chose something else, it won't be a disaster.