Bil: Ceramic supply vendors (also Hobby Lobby or Michael's) carry little
ceramic tripod pieces which are used to elevate pieces being fired in the
kiln. They keep the glaze from the potter from welding the piece to the
kiln bricks. Just two or three per pot should do.
They should have no problem if you put them in your dishwasher for
autoclaving the algae off every once in a while.
Alan Walker
http://bonsai-bci.com http://LCBSBonsai.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Corcoran. Bil
For several years we've been using plastic humidity trays to help keep
the humidity up around our plants and also to protect the shelves they
sit on from water drainage. For most of this time we filled the trays
with broken sea shells. This keeps the pot up out of the water so the
water in the tray doesn't wick up into the pot. The problem we're
having is that the shells get all messy with soil, dirt and even algae
and as you can imagine the shells are really hard to effectively clean.
When using a pot with no feet the pot does sometimes sit down low enough
in the shells to wick water, and pots with feet usually have their feet
hidden because they sink into the shells.

We've tried gravel, Turface and a number of other things but don't do
any better.

My question is can anyone think of something better we can use. I'd
like it to sit high enough that the pot cannot wick water into the
drainage hole. I'd like it to show off the feet on pots that have them.
I'd like it to be as invisible as possible. I'd like it to be cheap and
easy to find or buy. It needs to be water proof and uniform/level
enough to hold small or large pots (with and without feet) and most of
all I'd like it to be easy to clean. Wood strips? Masonry pieces?
Furniture blocks?
Any ideas?
wmcorcor

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