hey all,
just curious if putting figs (which are in 1 gallon pots) on a flat area with red bricks is fine or will the bricks absorb too much heat and warm up the pots too much (plants are about 3 months old and hardened off outside). Can't really go on the lawn right now to water my plants as my parents are worried about ticks so can't go outside next couple weeks as much as I'd like ...
Got testing for Lyme Disease today, had fever/chills/muscle fatigue same time dark red rash appeared on leg. (not a bullseye yet, and didn't see a tick there, but on antibiotics just in case).

Anyway, we had one week full of rain here in Phila, and looks like one more week of rain nexy week so I'm not too worried about watering them, guess I'm just curious *if* you can do it or will burn the roots.

-Arian

I expect they would be fine, but if you're worried about the roots getting too hot there are a couple of things you might consider. You can put something around the pot to protect it from direct sun. I'll sometimes nest large black pots inside white 5 gallon buckets with drainage holes in the sides, about an inch and a half up from the bottom. I've also wrapped white cloth around pots to shade them, or opened the bottom of a corrugated cardboard box (which makes pretty good insulation) so I can bend it to fit around a pot (see photo--not pretty, but it works). For smaller pots I'll sometimes just put them inside a paper bag to keep sun off the sides. The other thing I've found very helpful is keeping pots in a shallow tray of water (as in the photo) so they can always draw up enough to keep the leaves cool through transpiration. If you do that, it would probably be wise to empty the water at night so the soil around the roots can dry out a bit, but mine stay wet pretty much all the time with no problems.

Thanks for the ideas Ken... Guess my followup question is: Is there a reason why those generic garden pots aren't just white?
Is plastic naturally black and it would be more expensive to die them white?

Seems like a gardeners benefit to have white pots :)

I believe the reason may be that black is typically more resistant to degradation from the sun's ultraviolet rays. White pots would likely become brittle in a couple of years, but the black pots seem to last forever.