Roots, light, and clear pots question

 Many times I've contemplated using tranparent pots (clear plastic) for
house plants.

This would certainly help to guage root growth.  But does light harm roots?

Thanks for your help.

 "Bruce W.1" wrote:

I don't know of any effect of light on roots, but I also haven't come
across any source for transparent pots. If you want to gauge root growth
in anything up to about a 6" pot, you can just grab the plant, turn the
plant and pot upside down and give the bottom of the pot a slap. This
will loosen the root ball and you can just slide the pot off and look at
the roots. If you suspect your plant might not fill the pot, do this
with the plant and pot on its side instead of upside down. This will
help to reduce spillage of the growing medium. You can do it with pots
over 6" also, but they're harder to handle.

If you're worried about a plant becoming pot-bound, it won't hurt it to
put it into a larger pot. If the roots didn't fill the pot,
transplanting won't hurt it as long as you don't break up the roots too
much (some plants are more sensitive to this than others). Transplanting
the plant to a larger pot will supply new growing medium and probably a
new fertilizer charge (generally built into commercial growing medium).

 Light kills roots.  - However that means that you won't get any roots
growing on the outer edge of the pot (except for arial roots that can take
light) I would think.... So it should work?

DKat

 wrote:


Unless you cover the pot, I would expect a layer of algae to cover the
inside in short time.  That happens to my plants even in the white
plastic pots.


--

- Charles
-
-does not play well with others

 

plastic) for

harm roots?

The roots will avoid the light, so you'll never see them.

Jim Lewis - jklewis@nettally.com - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.