When it comes to choosing a pot material that is ideal for your succulents, there are a ton of alternatives. We have gathered the benefits and drawbacks of the most popular pot materials to aid in your decision-making. Let’s get started on finding one that keeps your plants happy and healthy.
Cacti and succulents thrive in concrete planters because they are porous and allow water to escape fast. Additionally, it is crucial that they contain drainage holes. Concrete planters are sturdy and excellent at protecting plants from sharp temperature changes. Concrete has the ability to both absorb and emit heat, which helps shield roots from early or late frosts.
Cons: Concrete pots should be handled carefully because they can be fairly fragile and hefty.
What is the cement pot mixture?
Planters can be made from nearly any type of concrete or cement mixture. However, the ideal cement for manufacturing pots will vary depending on the type of mold you use and the size of the planter.
The greatest cement mix, in my opinion, is Cement All since it builds up rapidly and cures in about an hour.
Another effective cement mix for making your own planters is Portland cement. Sand, however, is required for it to bind; otherwise, it won’t.
It’s crucial to use a smooth cement mixture to make a planter smooth. But remember that you must also mix the cement or concrete well to prevent lumps.
The result of not vibrating the mix will be either pinholes or pockmarks (air gap holes).
Color is a factor to be taken into account when choosing a concrete mix. Some concrete mixtures are white, whereas others are various shades of grey, from extremely light to fairly dark. Additionally, some combinations are beige or even off-white.
I advise using white cement if you are tinting the mix and building a planter. The purer a hue you can produce, the whiter the mixture must be.
Safety When Handling Concrete For Making Planters
Gloves must be used when handling concrete since it is corrosive, especially when the mixture is moist.
You can get burned by dry mix powder even. When working with cement and concrete, be careful to use extremely tough nitrile gloves to protect your skin.
The dry mix dust, which is damaging to your eyes, is another risk of working with concrete.
Concrete also contains silica, which, when exposed repeatedly, can really lead to cancer.
When working concrete, please wear safety goggles and a dust mask with a silica rating.
Mixing Cement For A Planter
Two cups of concrete or cement and roughly half a cup of water make up a basic formula for cement pots. If you are preparing a tiny planter, this is the recommended ratio for many combinations.
Sand must be added to some blends, but most do not. The ratio of cement to sand when using Portland cement should be 3:1 or 2:1. This article contains comprehensive information on the ideal cement mix ratio.
You must mix the concrete to a thick milkshake consistency if you are casting a planter with narrow walls.
This consistency makes it easier to pour and ensures that it will settle into the grooves. You want a consistency more akin to apple sauce for other planters.
The Thickness Of Concrete Planters For Durability
An appropriate planter must be at least 3/8 thick. However, in the end, will depend on how big it is altogether. The wall should be thicker the bigger the planter.
A 10x10x10 concrete pot will perform best with a thickness of 3/8 to 1/2. And bigger than that ought to be thicker still.
Making A Concrete Planter Mold
You can create your own silicone mold, build a form out of wood or corrugated plastic, or use a wooden form to create a mold for a concrete planter.
Use wood for larger planters. Some folks enjoy creating plywood molds. Since melamine has a flat surface and makes concrete smooth and simpler to demold, I prefer to use it.
The technique you decide depends on the dimensions and shape of the concrete planter you plan to construct.
Other materials can also be used to create concrete molds. The various techniques for creating concrete molds for crafts are covered in this article.
Additionally, this post will explain how to make concrete matte as well as shining.
Reusing Existing Items As Molds For Cement DIY Projects
In my article about picking the appropriate mold types for your concrete projects, I go into great length about this as well.
The short and sweet of it is that any plastic container that is straight or slightly beveled can be recycled.
There are many conceivable shapes, but bear in mind that an undercut is a bevel that goes in and out repeatedly on a container.
It will be challenging to extract the hardened concrete from the mold if there is an undercut. The better the form, the simpler it should be.
Thrift stores, Dollar Tree, and Dollar Store are good places to look for inexpensive things that have been reused for molds.
Creating Drainage Holes For A Pot Made From Concrete
Despite being porous materials, cement and concrete planters still need drainage holes.
You must make a drainage hole and provide a means for water to leave.
Instead of having to drill it after the fact, I much prefer to make a mold for the drainage hole in the planter.
The size of the drainage hole required for a concrete planter depends on the planter’s size. One 1/4 hole ought to be adequate for extremely small plantings.
Create more drainage holes if the planter is particularly large, such as a foot or more. Alternately, use a long drinking straw to create bigger drainage holes.
Making drainage holes during the molding process is more simpler than drilling them after the concrete has dried.
So how does using a drainage hole create mold work? First, trim a straw to roughly 1/4 of its original length. This is due to the fact that it must match the planter’s bottom’s thickness.
After that, adhere it to the mold’s base with hot glue and fill the straw’s open end with glue.
Use water while drilling with a power drill equipped with a diamond head drill bit to create drainage holes in concrete planters.
Hint: In my experience, PVC pipe drainage holes in concrete planters have been incredibly tough to remove. PVC pipe has been used in these drainage holes.
It is preferable to create an open tube out of sand in a plastic container and use that. It will be simple for you to get rid of it.
Here, a variation of the sand/tube drainage technique was applied, but it was done so as an interior shape.
Are plant pots made of cement okay?
Concrete is not poisonous to humans or to plants. Nevertheless, some plants may be harmed by concrete.
This is because concrete contains lime, which has a high alkaline content. Many plants require higher acidic soil in order to thrive because they can’t survive in high alkalinity soil.
Because they have probably undergone a leaching process and been sealed, most concrete planters that are bought from stores are safe for any plants.
If you want to be cautious, you can let the concrete planter soak in water for three days to let the alkalinity leak out.
Because they are relatively porous and will let some moisture through, cement and concrete pots are often excellent choices for potted plants.
With less chance of overwatering than if they were in a planter made of plastic or another non-porous material, this makes plants easier to care for.
Concrete and cement are equivalent in terms of which is better for plants. Each of them has lime and will release alkalinity.
With either concrete or cement, the soil’s ph level will be roughly the same.
Concrete can be neutralized by submerging it in water for approximately three days. Lime seeps through the pores of cement or concrete when submerged in water.
The advantage of doing this is that high alkalinity may cause some plant kinds to not grow or even to eventually perish. You see, lime is quite alkaline due to its high pH.
Lime leaching a concrete planter or pot is not required, however, as plants, like the majority of succulents, frequently flourish in soil with a higher pH.
Vegetables can be grown safely in concrete planters, pots, and other containers. But if you’re producing them from scratch, you should let them leach for three days.
Concrete planters that are bought from a store have typically already through that procedure and are highly likely to be sealed.
Although they may need to be watered more frequently, terra cotta and concrete pots are the best choice for the majority of plants because the alternatives can be more problematic.
Non-porous containers, like ceramic and plastic pots, hold too much water, which is a surefire way to get root rot. There must be drainage holes in these kinds of containers.
This is because concrete leaches lime, which has a high alkaline content, and succulents prefer soil that is higher on the alkaline side.
In a concrete planter, though, you can put any kind of plant, though you might want to wet it beforehand.
Change the water every day for three days while doing this. This will hasten the process of alkalinity leaching away.
In addition to soaking the concrete planters in water, you can decide to seal them if you are still concerned about high alkalinity.
Only plants that require more acidic soil should be grown in concrete pots that need to be sealed.
Succulents thrive in this habitat, however many other plants won’t be content in this soil.
Some of the lime will not bleed into the soil if the concrete is sealed.
But before sealing, I advise giving the pots a three-day soak in water. This will rapidly remove most of the concrete’s alkalinity.
The prevention of efflorescence is another advantage of sealing DIY concrete planters. The minerals in concrete bleed through and generate an accumulation of white residue, which is what causes efflorescence.
Depending on your objectives, you can choose the best concrete sealer for planters. A concrete planter should be sealed for two reasons.
One is that it can increase the concrete’s durability slightly, and the other is that it can help stop lime, a common element in concrete and cement products, from leaching.
Why are the cement pots I created myself cracking?
The information that follows can help you identify cracked concrete, but if you’d like a professional’s opinion, speak with a concrete contractor in your area for a hands-on evaluation.
Reason #1 – Excess water in the mix
For concrete to reach its optimum strength, little water is needed. However, a sizable portion of the concrete used in residential construction has too much water added to it on the job site. To make the concrete easier to install, this water is injected. The concrete’s strength is also significantly diminished by the additional water.
Cracking is frequently caused by shrinkage. Concrete shrinks as it dries and hardens. This is a result of extra mixing water evaporating. The shrinkage will be larger the wetter or soupier the concrete mix is. Concrete slabs have a maximum shrinkage of 1/2 inch every 100 feet. As a result of this shrinkage, the concrete experiences forces that essentially tear the slab apart. These stresses ultimately result in cracks.
Are plants harmed by cement?
Cement is mostly utilized to make homes, buildings, and other things of this nature in today’s globe.
Plants are readily harmed by concrete because they come into contact with it when we mix concrete for our do-it-yourself house repairs and in other indirect ways, as when they are planted in concrete planters.
Cement and concrete have an impact on plants because the limestone (calcium carbonate) they contain has a direct impact on soil pH, raising it to highly alkaline levels. As the pH rises, the soil’s minerals become less soluble and thus less soluble for plants to absorb.
Many people frequently believe that cement and concrete are interchangeable terms. The truth is that they are distinct from one another. A crucial component of concrete is cement.
Because it dissolves cement due to the presence of weak acids in it, acid rain can be dangerous for regions where cement and concrete are used.
Let’s examine every facet of cement and plants to gain a thorough understanding of this subject.
What distinguishes cement from concrete?
What makes cement different from concrete? Despite the frequent confusion between the words cement and concrete, cement is a component of the latter. Aggregates and paste are combined to make concrete. Sand, gravel, or crushed stone make up the aggregates, while water and portland cement make up the paste.
How are portable concrete pots made?
Sophie demonstrates how to create a portable container that mimics the elegance of stone.
She is making use of a substance known as hypertufa, which is a pot created at home from a combination of cement, coir, and perlite. Alpine plant growers created miniature rockery gardens using hypertufa. It is lovely, frost resistant, lightweight, and little porous.
Any size or shape of hypertufa pot can be created; all you need is the right mold.
What you need:
- nitrile gloves
- Safety gear includes safety glasses and a dust mask (P2 standard).
- Vermiculite or perlite (perlite is more commonly used)
- Coco fiber
- Cement
- plastic mixing container
- Water
- Cooking oil, spray
- To create a drainage hole, use a short length of hose, cork, or dowel.
- elastic mallet
- Moulds (pots, boxes, buckets)
- Sandpaper or a wire brush
What you do:
It’s time to combine once you have all of your materials ready. Wear safety goggles to shield your eyes from dust, rubber gloves to protect your hands, and a dust mask to prevent inhaling cement particles. In a plastic container, combine 3 parts perlite, 3 parts coir, and 2 parts cement. (Or sections of 1.5:1.5:1). Your pot’s size will determine how much you need. (You might use the extra mix for a tiny side project with pots.)
A little at a time, add water to the tub until the mixture resembles moist cottage cheese. You run the danger of making it too wet if you add too much water. Squeezing a fistful of it should result in it holding its shape and just releasing a few drips of water. The combination is overly wet if, when squeezed, it feels spongy and you can see water.
Spray cooking oil within the mold of your choice. In order to make a drainage hole, Sophie also uses a brief length of hose that has been treated with oil; cork or a dowel would also work.
Push a handful of the wet hypertufa mixture firmly onto the mold’s bottom while holding the drainage hole stopper in place. Repeat these steps up until you have a bottom base that is roughly 2.5 cm thick. Approximately 2 cm thick piles of wet hypertufa mixture should be pressed firmly against the container’s sides. Continue until you reach the mold’s rim. To get rid of air pockets, firmly press the bottom and sides. Sophie fills a huge bucket and nestles a smaller bucket within to provide a more equal finish. Another option is to shape it by placing a small object inside the mold.
Remove the pot from the plastic bag, which will be somewhat wet, and clean it of any mold. To give the hypertufa a more rustic appearance, roughen the surface with a wire brush or sandpaper sponge. If your pot breaks apart as you remove it from the mold, the mixture may have been too wet or you may have removed it too soon.
Allow your new pot to “cure” (fully dry) by keeping it out of the elements for two to three weeks.
Your new pot is prepared for use after it has cured. It can be used outside like any other pot and placed outside.
With the fascinating world of hypertufa, there are many possibilities to investigate. You might also add colored stones or dyes to the mixture, or you could wrap the pot’s outside in a pattern-making material like mesh or dried leaves.