Concrete Pot Collars

Concrete Pot Collars
We have all experienced this scenario, a great deal of time and TLC,( tender loving care), spent on a beloved specimen plant. There it is, sat in it’s pot in the garden or patio, when along comes that rather strong breeze and blows your pride and joy over, probably damaging it beyond redemption. You could cry, all because it is a little light in the pot, and not an heavy enough plant pot that it’s in. The bigger the head on the plant, the more vunerable it is.
A few years back, a Fuchsia grower and showman gave a lecture at our society, and he gave one of the best tips that I have come across. To me, it is the perfect answer, a concrete collar. A good sturdy base for the plant and its pot to sit in, and if you are using plastic plant pots, it has another benefit, the collar keeps the plant’s soil cooler, longer. Over a time, you can build up a range of sizes of collars. The only difficult part of the exercise is, the larger the size of pot, the larger the bucket needed as a mould and the heavier it is to lift and carry about.
The collars are quite useful when transporting your prize plants, keeping the plants erect, and they don’t move around in your vehicle.
The idea is simple, you get a pot, ( terracota, below ), the same size as the one that the plant is growing in, invert this pot in a plastic bucket, (the dark green outer bucket, below), or suitable container of roughly the same size as the pot. A runny mix of coarse sand and cement, ( beige colour), is poured around the pot in the bucket, until it is level with the bottom of the pot as in Fig.1. This concrete mix is allowed to set, usually a couple of days, then the bucket is turned upside down and the pot with its collar pops out. You will be left with the collar and a pot inside it. Fig.2.
	Fig.1	Fig.2