Pot Bound Acacia

[illogicalBrew]

...

Edited April 11, 2016 by illogicalBrew

[Bert&Ernie]

I would plant them in the ground as acacias hate being in pots and not having any room for there roots to grow

[Jox]

Good score for $5 mate,

I have just re potted my A. obtus seedlings yesterday into much bigger pots using a native potting mix.

I wasn't planning on doing it for another couple of months but there roots were growing out the bottom of there original pots, there only 4months old.

If i had a choice & the right location I'd be putting them in the ground for sure but unfortunately I rent so I have everything in pots.

Get some pics up, so we can have a look

Good luck.

Cheers

jox

[totemgoat]

doesn't look thaaaaaat potbound to me, should be fine to plant if you tease out the outer bottom roots very lightly.

be gentle though, acacia aren't big fans of root disturbance.

the good thing about that particular tubestock (40mm?) is that they have guides running down the interior of the pot; keeps the roots going downwards mostly, meaning it's difficult for them to become genuinely rootbound.

[illogicalBrew]

doesn't look thaaaaaat potbound to me, should be fine to plant if you tease out the outer bottom roots very lightly.

be gentle though, acacia aren't big fans of root disturbance.

the good thing about that particular tubestock (40mm?) is that they have guides running down the interior of the pot; keeps the roots going downwards mostly, meaning it's difficult for them to become genuinely rootbound.

 

Thanks for the advice. Some more pics up soon but I'm still haven't been home yet; at the mrs place and woke up to the landlords' contractors doing asbestos removal around my plants!

Some general advice I did receive was to make cuts with a knife along those guides to help spread the roots out better. By gentle I assume not using a knife; glad I asked here first.

So I guess I'm planting these out. I have a few site options. There's a creek in my backyard surrounded by much plant life offering shade most of the day or other sites offering full sun. Ideally, how much sun do Acacia need to thrive? Are there any other requirements I should think about in choosing a site? I assume the soil in these locations are all going to be the same.

[ghosty]

while acacia's occur as an understory tree mostly, i have a few of them in full sun and they love it! some variants like part shade though. if i were you, id place them while in pots around the place to find where they like best. i did that with some mimosa plants and while to me, i couldnt notice any real difference in a small 3x3m section in my yard (light and wind flow wise) the plants did respond dramaticly. oh, and well done with getting so many native tubestock for $5!

[Jonstn]

I got some tubestock of various acacias last year who's roots were in the same state as yours are, didn't try and spread the roots or anything just put them into a bigger pot, took a few weeks for them to pick back up but they are doing just fine, so far they've survived summer in full sun and done fine during winter out in the cold and wet they (for me anyway) don't seem nearly as fragile as people put out to be, even my obtus seedlings have been roughing it outside since before Christmas and they only just hit a year old last month.

Great deal btw, sad to hear its from a place that's shutting down though

[illogicalBrew]

Got an album up here:

http://imgur.com/a/zwxLk

Pretty sure about the ID of the A. longifolia subsp. sophorae and the A. maidenii but not so much the A. melanoxylon.

Originally picked up the suspected A. melanoxylon up because of the red stem and caterpillar-eaten like phyllode margins thinking possibly A. obtusifolia, but have changed my mind since the apex isn't really all that obtuse.

Edited February 15, 2016 by illogicalBrew

[Heretic]

A " green - thumb " expert gardener once told me to to cut the pots off bound plants with seccies , to reduce stress when transplanting , instead of tearing them out . Seems to help .