Specialty Gardening: insulating the interior of pots with bubble wrap, 1 by GordonHawk

GordonHawk wrote:
Well... I use broken up foamin thebottomof all of my planters..fordrainage issues.. keeping thesoil out of the drainage holes.. and the roots grow right into and through the hard white styrofoam I break up for this.. thisanchors the rootsto the soil and pots... and doesinsulate the bottoms.. from theheat on my roof top... often getting to 145*F with aday temp of 80*F. onsomeof my larger planters I line thesides with 1" or 2" sheet foam.. to insulate the plants...
None of thesewillchange the over all low temperatures in the air.. although it does slowdown the changes... this isparticularly useful to me in the lat winter... when the bright winter sun..perhaps off a snow cover... will rapidly heat up a container..thawing it out... allowing the roots to start transporting moisture up the stem.. when the freexe returns in the evening.. this upper transported moisture in the stem will freeze right away.. fractureing the cellular structure of the stem.. blistering the bark... [ usually noiticeable on the sunnyside of the trunk ] I use foam to slightly slow down this rapid thawing out.. but doesn't stop the early thawing out in the real spring... where my pots will thaw out a month or better before the ground ... this early thawing is the reason... squrrels will climb 5 floors up the fire escape... from the park on the next block.. with the peanuts they feed them there.. to burry them in my planters... so they can enjoy an early spring meal... weeks before the ones planted in the ground..
Gordon