FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello all !

I potted a few days ago my plants in pots from the brand Integrated plastics.

They are self watering and so far it seems to be amazing.
There are no wicks or anything like that, just a hole at the bottom of the pot which brings air in to decrease the chance of root rot.

It's 6 inches wide and about 6 inches high. There is a piece of plastic (basically the hidden bottom of the pot) over the water reservoir and the holes are fairly small. There is than a very much slowed down absorption as opposed to have a pot which stands in a saucer of water, which kinds of pushes the water up and soaks the media like crazy. It makes that the water will evaporate more gradually and moistens the media.

Since the CP likes it moist most of the time, I found that the media was not mushy at all, it seems to have the perfect moist level.

The VFT mix that I used was Perlite (about 30%), horticultural sand (20%) and peat at about 50%. For the cephalotus, I used more of an airy mix with more sand and perlite.

So far, both seem to work extremely well for that pot depth.

Great 3$ investment per pot if you can grab one of those

Have a good one guys

got any pics?
The way I'm understanding you is the water gets into the media by evaporating then condensing onto the media? Sounds cool.

Sekler ... How do we purchase those pots ? Did you buy them online ? Do you have a link ?

It would be a little more useful if you did tell us where you bought them from and a few pics, please

Hehe sorry guys, I forgot to upload pictures, my batteries were dead as I wanted to do so. I'll upload them very shortly as I'm almost home !

It can be bought here at the local retail store in Canada, I'll try to find it on another website for you guys !
I'm pretty sure that the design was used by other companies, so you may find it around.

Pictures incoming...

Here you go guys,
As you can see there is a hole on the side of the pot (3/4 of an inch high from the bottom) which hides basically the integrated saucer, and the plate with the holes where the water evaporates directly onto the media. The hole on the side also allows for air circulation. If it ever rains, any excess will squirt out of the side hole, so you can see that the water level can't be too high. The recess that you see in the middle is very small and doesn't seem to come in contact with the water, it actually just seems to support the plate/weight of the plant.
I'm sure that someone could do their own modification of an existing pot for this, however they cost less than 3$ canadian here so I got a few hehe

There are also 10 and 12 inches pots I believe. So far it seems to be working well, the media stays just perfectly moist and the water levels goes down fairly slowly. I believe that this can also help to avoid having mineral accumulation

It seems to be hard to find them online (those exact ones), I even saw that the company went bankrupt. If I find a website I will let you know, I just wanted to share this cheap gadget with you ! I'm curious to fully test out these guys next summer !

the centre well will contain wet media as water soaks in from underneath, then the moisture will distribute/absorb out from there.

its like most self watering pots with a wick but it looks like someone removed the wick from the hole, as other styles of self water pot generally sit a very small section of the media into the water as it helps train your plants root system to go for the deepest, moist part of the soil. (the well)

all the holes are for water drainage only, you wont get evaporation through them but the well in the centre will do some of the work for you.

since your missing the wick i'd poke a few holes in the side of the "well" at various heights, and let the lowest portion of media soak in the water and draw it up for the rest of the soil. this is how my self watering pots work and it does a great job but you will still need to top water to keep the exposed top layer moist.

the well will be damp, but above the well will just be moist soil as you'd expect.

Thanks Oblivion for the reply.

Damn, so that would mean that the pots that I have got a construction flaw ?
All of them were like that at the store...
You know what, I'll try to fill up the empty one I have to see exactly how it turns out. Otherwise, I'll drill the holes

its not a flaw, its just a different design and doesnt make it a bad pot to use.

i'd still use it anyway, it is a nice looking pot and you'll find its better than the regular ones with seperate water tray as the water evaporates off them pretty quick, which to me is a waste of rain/distilled water.

im a huge fan of the self watering pots because i dont have a Rainwater tank and they make far better use of the water you do use.

ive got a lot of spare pots here with the wick, if you want to cover postage costs i'll mail you over a few.

probably about $5aud, pm me if your interested

Awesome dude !

I'll let you know for sure, I wonder how much the postage would cost (it is light and cheap, but often the size sometimes can make the price drastically go up !) thanks for the offer !
I actually tried to fill up the empty pot I had with water and the well actually fills up, but I guess that the amount gets sucked up pretty quickly

about $5aud will cover it