I add packing peanuts encased in panty hose to lighten the weight of large pots. I keep my packing peanuts (pp) in a trash bag in an out of the way spot and come to it when shipping something or when potting plants--a good way to reuse these annoying, fly-all-over pp.
I used to just drop the pp in the pot but the following year when it was time to redo pot, I had a dirty mess to contend with. The hose contain the pp nicely.
The panty hose is a good idea - I've used the packing peanuts in the bottom of my pots for a long time, but they do get really messy with soil eventually trickling down through them.
On the large containers, I go thru the extra trouble of placing a piece of window screen to prevent so much silt/dirt from falling thru the peanuts. Window screen (plastic not metal) is another gardener's friend. It costs about $12 a roll and is excellent for putting over container drain holes to slow down erosion.
Maybe somebody on CL is getting rid of their screens, and then it costs you nothing. Avoid metal mesh as it disintegrates in the pot. The nylon ones are flexible to work with and more durable
Neat ideas. I will have to try them.
Question: don't the plants one would have in a large container want a lot of soil? Or are you only talking about having small plants whose roots don't try to get that big?
I can't answer for Vossner, but my containers tend to be pretty big (typically a couple feet across and about that tall, too.) So my plants have plenty of room to stretch their roots, even with the packing peanuts taking up some space at the bottom.
That's the way I would hv answered. But, if you are planting something in a pot that you are NEVER going to move I would probably fill with mostly soil but still butting a little bit of gravel and window screen right over drain hole so that soil doesn't eventually plug hole.
I live in tornado and hurricane land and moving pots is part of readiness routine so everything I can do to lighten the loads is welcome.
what great ideas! I've used rinsed soda cans to fill in a bit but they were still a mess when you had to repot! Thanks everyone!
