Glass fibre pots weathering after a couple of years

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Posted by john east on September 5, 2011, 11:38 am
 
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The winds just blown over our olive tree in a terracota pot.  I must say the
pot has broken up very easily.

At the garden centre we have just seen some so called 'fibre-clay' pots, and
they do quite a big square one which is what we need.  It's fibra glass with
a moulded patterned outside.

They come in different colours which seems to be sprayed on to the outside.
A paler similar colour to the top colour seems to lie underneath the top
colour.

Does anyone have experience of these pots and how do they 'weather' after a
few years.  If they resort back to a grey shiny finish (which is lot of
fibre glass is that colour )they might look a bit awful after two or three
years?




Posted by Martin on September 5, 2011, 12:25 pm
 On Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:38:16 +0100, "john east"


You could always repaint them.

A bigger risk is that they get a nasty attack of boat pox - osmosis.
--

Martin


Posted by Jake on September 5, 2011, 1:15 pm
 On Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:38:16 +0100, "john east"


Repainting after some colour fade isn't a problem.

I'd look at it another way. If the wind has blown something in a pot
over then the something was too big for the weight of the pot or you
were using the wrong compost (multipurpose instead of John Innes, for
example). Simply choosing a different type of pot because terracota
broke won't be a recipe for long term success - the plant will
eventually get fed up with being blown over.

You will need to either make the pot heavier (breeze blocks in the
bottom of a sufficiently larger pot and/or a heavier compost) or plant
the something in the ground.

Incidentally, terracota can look great on the outside but it may have
been weakened from the inside by frost last winter and so break
easily. I don't regard any non-plastic pot as frostproof - if they're
left in the garden after the early frosts they'll be covered in
multiple layers of bubblewrap.

Cheers
Jake
==============================================
Gardening at the dry end (east) of Swansea Bay
in between reading anything by JRR Tolkien.

www.rivendell.org.uk

Posted by Dave Hill on September 5, 2011, 2:31 pm
 
Why not make yourself a good square wooden planter?

Posted by john east on September 5, 2011, 3:08 pm
 

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Why not make yourself a good square wooden planter?

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Dave I like that idea, i seem to remember some metal angle brackets
specially to form simple angle joints on the inside of a wooden planter.
If anyone has any further info on that I would be grateful.