I just removed the plastic wrap at the top and planted the Agastache as-is.
If this looks like a paid post, I promise it’s not! I’m just excited by the plantable pots that contained the ‘Blue Fortune’ Agastaches that I bought from Bluestone Perennials. Instead of plastic pots, they came in plantable “cocopots.”
To which I say hallelujah!!! I hate to think how many plastic pots I’ve had to get rid of. My town’s recycling contractor accepts them, finally, but recycling is a poor alternative to avoiding plastic pots altogether.
So I’m happy to provide this free advertising for Bluestone Perennials, including the description of plantable pots on its website. My favorite features are in bold:
We’re excited! Our plants are grown in 3.5” square x 4”deep 100% biodegradable pots that can be planted directly in the ground. Made from coconut fibers, these pots have tremendous advantages over plastic. Just snip off the Bluestone band and plant the pot—they are ready to grow!
Plastic vs. Plantable
Since switching to plantable pots over 10 years ago, we’ve seen numerous advantages to growing in biodegradable pots instead of plastic! The exceptional permeability to water, air and plant roots allows our plants to quickly grow a robust root system. In traditional plastic pots, plants will tend to become root-bound with a tightly interwoven root mass at the bottom of the container. When grown in our plantable fiber pot, the same plant grows healthy roots throughout the entire pot which air prune as they exit the pot. In addition:
- You plant the pot directly into the ground causing little to no transplant shock.
- Made from a renewable resource requiring very little energy.
- 100% biodegradable. Naturally becomes part of the soil on its own over time. No composting required.
- Ships in our custom packaging system that protect plants during transit and has completely eliminated the use of styrofoam peanuts in our shipping.
I grew this ‘Blue Fortune’ Agastache last season and it attracted SO many bees and hummingbirds, I ordered two more this year.
Those Bluestone pots are great, but I still cut slits in the sides as I haven’t found them to be immediately biodegradable.
I grew Agastache ‘Lavender Hyssop’ and Ageratum ‘Blue Mink’ from seed indoors but I lost the labels so I don’t know which is which! They’re now both growing well outdoors so I hope to be able to tell them apart soon…lol
Susan,
I am a longtime, happy, customer of Bluestone. Like you, I just remove the plastic band and put the plant and coir pot right into the ground. I offer this tip . . .
Cover the entire pot with soil. If you leave the lip of the coir pot aboveground, the exposed coir may act as a wick drawing moisture out of the ground causing the plants to dry out a bit sooner.
John
I agree with Kim, cut slits in the side. My pots did not biodegrade over the winter. The violas did not survive (it was a bad year, don’t blame bluestone for failure), and the pots were still completely intact.
I take off the entire coir pot. Like others, it doesn’t seem to biodegrade as well, and I think the root growth is better (either directly by going into the surrounding soil or indirectly by root disturbance and breakage of any roots that penetrate the coir). I use the “leftover” coir for large pots at the bottom to reduce soil wash out or at the surface to deter weeds and/or squirrels/chipmunks.
Even compost does not degrade (oxidize) in a single year . . . altho’ it seems like it does. Thankfully, neither does peat nor coir. Otherwise, we would be replacing our potting soil every year.
Roots grow THROUGH the coir . . . at least in my garden. But I have no truck with those who prefer to cut slits or de-pot. I did the same when I first used Bluestone’s coir pots. Ultimately, I found that it made little to no difference in plant prosperity or growth. There are also some among us who are devout root-washers. Chacun a son gout.
Coir fiber breaks down very slowly, and can form a barrier between the soil and the potting medium. As pointed out above, it can wick water from the soil if left exposed. Potting medium is very different from most parent soils and you still can have incompatibility, exacerbated by the coir fiber barrier. If the plants have been in the pots too long, you still have the problem of a congested root system that may need to be broken up. I applaud the use of compostable pots, but they are best composted separately after being removed before planting.
For those of us with clay soil, I’ve found it best to open the coir bottom before planting. I also agree that you have to plant deep enough so that the entire pot is covered. Despite all this, applause to Bluestone, a local NEOhio company.
I’ve ordered and successfully grown out many plants from Bluestone, in the coco pots. I agree with those who find that in some cases the roots have difficulty penetrating the coco fiber. They certainly don’t degrade in a year. So I’ve taken to carefully cutting slits in the side and bottom.
I’ve ordered and successfully grown out many plants from Bluestone, in the coco pots. I agree with those who find that in some cases the roots have difficulty penetrating the coco fiber. They certainly don’t degrade in a year. So I’ve taken to carefully cutting slits in the side and bottom.
I want to also give a high five for how well Bluestone packages their plants – really impressed with all the plants I’ve gotten from Bluestone!! I was concerned about the wicking effect of the coir at the top so I cut the top edge of the pot down to the growing medium so when planted it would definitely be under the soil.
I told myself no more plants this spring and then I get another “sale” email from them and I’m ordering more!!!
Thanks for your advice! I started carving slits into the coir but it made more sense to just remove it and add it to the compost pile.
I love Blustone but I am not a fan of the pots at all – we remove them before planting. I have lost too many plants where the coir pot either retarded root growth or completely prevented growth.
Ah yes. Another capillary barrier aka perched water table in the making. Also the roots girdle before the pots breakdown if they ever do. At worst Bluestone seems to be on a greenwashing marketing spree. At best, just another questionable product. A first cousin of peat pots. Maybe fine for annuals and maybe for perennials and for Bluestone, maybe even those who want to purchase the same items every year or so. Here’s a novel idea. Bare root the plants. Compost these pots after cutting them up or shredding and put in compost. And BTW compost shouldn’t be just added to the home garden unless a soil test says there’s a nutrient deficiency. In the USA soil testing is readily available and more affordable longterm.
Even if you have to get rid of the pot, it is way better than a plastic pot. I’m glad to know about this and will support them when I can. It’s about time we have an alternative!
I’ve been happily purchasing plants from Bluestone forever and I never worried about the plant roots not getting through. Now I am. I will slit the sides and bottom and see if I get even better results! Thanks for highlighting them.
Really interested to hear the comments- we have a company in the UK called The Hairy Pot Co, doing the same thing. I experienced all the difficulties expressed here and gave up on them. However I would like to support them, so I will try out your helpful suggestions.
There are concerns of this pot. Plastic, peat, coir aside, a plant can become root-bound in production nurseries in about 8 weeks. The first step should be to remove them from the pots and inspect/correct any root deformities at transplanting time. If gardeners decide to delay planting, root issues become multiplied. Nearly all containerized nursery plants are now grown in a soil-free media composed of ground bark with other non-soil products. These mixes are completely unrelated to native soils. Nursery mixes are designed to be sharply draining to prevent over watering and minimize root diseases while in a production setting. These pots are no magic bullet.
i have had a number of this company’s potted plants die and when I remove them the entire “decomposable” pot is very much intact. I have since learned to take the plant out of the pot, tear the pot up into little pieces and compost it. hope Bluestone picks up on this article and comments, might help it improve. No system on, in, above or under the earth is perfect.
Sally,
Your post is helpful in this discussion. I, too, lost plants from Bluestone early on. However, my bugaboo was failing to recognize the need to either keep them well-watered or avoid having the coir exposed above the surface. Keeping the coir pot completely covered by soil seemed to be the solution to avoid early plant death. Since adopting this strategy, I have rarely lost a plant and, when I have, it’s usually because I’ve been an idiot.
A casual perusal of Internet information will show that coir does not quickly decompose. I like using the coir pots for several reasons, but quick decomposition is not one of them. Slow decomposition of coir, IMHO, is not a factor in Bluestone plants thriving or non-survival.
Nor do I believe that any of my many, many hundreds of plants received from Bluestone expired because of roots being unable to grow through the coir pots. To the contrary, if I have to leave my Bluestone shipments unplanted for a bit (because of, say, triple-bypass heart surgery), I almost invariably find roots quickly growing through the bottoms before I can get them in the ground.
Those who dig up an expired Bluestone plant with no roots showing through might consider whether the plant might have died before the roots had a chance to poke through, i.e., the ex-plant had already gone like a stiff Norwegian Blue to sing in the choir invisible. Of course, I can’t say what happened in your, or others’, gardens. But, I can say, contrary to the generalized suppositions made elsewhere in this forum, that I have never found roots trapped or girdled inside a coir pot.
Cutting slits or removing the bottoms of the pots to facilitate root growth are easy enough to alleviate concerns if preferred FWIW, I found that removing the coir pot before planting often involved tearing roots that had already partially penetrated the coir. I worried that I was doing more harm than good when I did it when I first began using Bluestone.
I enjoy this blog, but if I have one criticism – perhaps an obvious one – it is that there are not enough references to Monty Python. Thank you for remedying this. And well done. You sneak in a reference to a triple-bypass surgery (making my recent cataract surgery pathetic) and there is a subtle word play between Bluestone, the Norwegian blue, and the Norwegian blue being pronounced as “stone dead.” Nice!
Somehow we need to get “A shrubbery!” into this thread…
Happy to see I am not the only one. Poor success rate with this nursery if planting in the pot. They heave in winter and you lose the plant. I do wish all all nurseries would switch to biodegradable pots, which I would be happy to remove and compost.