Quick question. Summer heat isn't too far off here in NE Texas. High 90s and 100s aren't rare. To keep watering down to a minimum, would a water saucer under my large 15+ gallon pots and smaller 3-5 gallon pots work well? My figs get nothing, but the hottest afternoon sun.

I do it with good resalts. It will suck up more water then you think. Get a decent size saucer so you can play around with the water levels. I like in south louisiana and its hot already. Humid too.

Look closely at the blue bucket in the background. I put all my trees in these and it is a tremendous difference in growth. Dollar tree.

Bumping this up,

I saw the kiddy pool idea for the wall mart bags and decided to go ahead with my pots next summer since most of my trees suffer in the heat.

for those in zones 9 and above what type of saucers do u use - the normal saucers- i are too low and spill pretty fast. 

I tought of a  dough mixing barrel like this. any inputs? 

I've thought about this. I don't think it's a plan for me, but maybe this would work for you.

http://www.webbsonline.com/Item/Laguna-Lily-Tubs-60977?gclid=CLKLreeBxs8CFQRZhgodwuME3w

Instead of the kiddy pools, I got the shallow pans that are sold to put under home water heaters. Any big box store hardware store will sell them. Just make sure to get the ones without the drain holes already added. You can put 3 to 4 fair sized pots in a single pan. You can also buy the larger shallow pans that are designed to go under washing machines, but they are more expensive (I am not sure how well the plastic will hold up to the sun).

I also tried the re-usable grocery bag idea, as a cheap replacement for buying grow-bags or root-pouches. The grocery bags seem start breaking down after a few months. Some brands more than others. I think the sun is the biggest reason, along with constant moistener. I will be moving all the trees that I tried this with into real grow-bags this coming spring.


CliffH