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Will
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A look at a few Bonsai Pots

Here are a few bonsai pots from my personal collection. These pots show you some important things to know about what they are, why they are how they are and how best to use them.

You probably know why there are holes in the bottom of the pots. But some larger pots also have peculiar little holes. I will explain to you why they are there.

I also have an article about the specifics of various shaped bonsai pots and how to plant in them

Here are some of my bonsai pots

Several of my bonsai pots

The picture shows you a few different things of import when it comes to bonsai pots. First off they are shallow pots. In a lot of gardening we want deep pots. But the art of bonsai requires us to very much control the root system of the trees. And one of the ways we do this is by using a shallow pot. And, the shallow pot also adds to the aesthetic look of the overall plant and pot setup. The shallow pot is less imposive and it gives a better and more realistic look.

Some things to look for

There are just a few traditional shapes for bonsai and this goes back to the aesthetic look of the overall setup and the type of tree along with the type of trimming you are looking to achieve with the tree or trees.

Below you see two common types of pots: the rectangle and the oval. Typically with pots like this you would offset a tree toward one side. Usually at about the 1/3rd point.

Two small bonsai pots

One more thing to think about.

Your bonsai pot has to have at least one hole in the bottom and commonly they have two. You can see these holes. The bigger dishes will have holes like this too. But the bigger dishes might also have extra holes that are very small. These small holes might be about the diameter of coathanger wire. And this is because they aren't for drainage, they are for running wires. With the bigger trees you often have to wire the tree and root ball right into the pot. Particularly at first while the roots haven't taken hold. So, just be aware of the fact that if you are doing large bonsai you might want to get pots with these smaller extra holes.

Large bonsai pots