Guerilla Tree Grow: Self-Watering System?

Long time reader of RIU, but first time poster so I got myself a new registered account and here it goes...

Hey, I'm planning something new for the 08 season, a guerilla-style tree grow. I plan on going to trees in remote areas, pick some healthy large ones, climb up to a good height, and select a site with strong/heavy branching. Once I have a site picked out, I'm going to build a small flower-bed out of pre-cut pieces of wood (5 pieces, 1 square 'floor' piece with drainage holes will make the floor, and then 4 equal pieces to form the 'sides'). Each planting pan will be painted camoflauge. I'll start by attaching the floor piece, then naililng in the 4 sides. From there I plan on filling the bottom few inches with rocks (or something else with good drainage), then my soil mix (hopefully using coca coir as mulch to top it all off). I'll then put my seedling/clone in the planter and remove myself from the tree. Each 'flower bed' suspended in the tree will hold a single plant, I'll try to space the flower beds out to invididual trees, although some trees may hold multiple plants planted in different parts of the trees in their own respective beds.

My question is about watering/nutes. I won't be able to visit the plants everyday as going to a remote location and climbing multiple trees just isn't feasible for me on a regular schedule... so I was thinking about auto-watering systems so then I'd only have to show up to top off the resevoir every 2/3 weeks (depending on heat, plant size, etc)..... I was thinking something like this might work? Gardening Accessories - Plantastic 32 Ounce Watering System
It's pretty cheap, won't be noticeable in the tree, and should in theory keep me from having to go water regularly... looks like a pretty simple setup, makes me wonder if I couldn't make something like it myself..

I found some other style of automatic watering devices on google as well...
Automatic Plant Watering Systems and Misting Supplies - Mist and Water Timers, Drip Systems, Valves, Nozzle Cleaner and Filters from ACF - 'The Green Genious' on this site looks pretty cool, not to mention if I did have multiple plants growing in a single tree, I could set up a site in the tree (perhaps at a lower location?) to hold the Green Genius, and this would be able to water all the plants in the individual tree... and set one up per tree... runs off of batteries and apparently only needs new batteries every 3 months... would likely cause more noise then the product on the Liquid Fence site though..

Automatic Plant Waterers - Lee Valley Tools
This one is nutty looking... says indoor only, but I'm wondering if it could be adapted (or if I could build a similar thing) to my needs...


anyway, any input on these kinda systems? Anyone use them before or got some better ideas? Or think they'll work at all? And as for nutrients, could I not add the nutrients to my water resevoir (conservatively), and then the plants will be getting their daily nutes with their daily watering? Do nutes seperate (or break down?) from the water and might cause consistancy issues?

Thanks for any help guys!

Mike from the North East...

i set up 2 tree grows last wknd. not as camod as yours but its only cuz im out in the boonies. i just fell the top off 2 trees and put a pot on each. my resivior is a 30 gallon tank that i roped up to a tree thats higher than the pots. i bought a auto watering system from a local garden shop and have hoses goin down to the pots. just lettin u know its a good idea and you should definatley go for it. definatley DO NOt leave your rope or ladder or how ever you get up the tree sittin there for anyone to use

PumpkinRoller said:

my resivior is a 30 gallon tank that i roped up to a tree thats higher than the pots.

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How do you fill it? That's a lot of gallons to haul up a tree!

only have had to fill it once so far and i did it 2 gallons at a time withe a rope and a friend at the bottom fillin it

PumpkinRoller said:

only have had to fill it once so far and i did it 2 gallons at a time withe a rope and a friend at the bottom fillin it

Click to expand...

im calling bluff

Ill take pics of the whole setup 2moro afternoon

PumpkinRoller said:

Ill take pics of the whole setup 2moro afternoon

Click to expand...

i look forward to seeing them

When they go up i think it would be appropriate for you to call me father lol jk but really i dont appreciatte the disbelief, but itll all be settle tomorrow

Somehow i doubt you pulled 2 gallons of water up a tree 15 times. and how would you cut the top off a tree and not loose your balance and fall i mean come on man sounds a little blown up

I've thought about the tree ideal years back, but I've also had 7 plants in 1 area in a weedy spot, and when I brought Buddies to the spot, they couldn't see the plants untill I pointed them out. The only realistic reason, as far as I can tell, to grow in trees is that you expect people to be walking through the area. Tree growing is just too much work when good on-ground hiding spots can be used. What about ants & squirrels in the trees? Yous platform would make a great squirrel's nest.

Yep you're right, the reason I'm going in trees is due to the fact that I can almost expect someone to walk by. Pot theievery is rampant in the county I'm in, it seems as though the thieves team up and outnumber us growers... I'd say an average year, I can only reap 20% of what I sow (assuming I plant apart, and split my crop up into 1 or 2 plant plots spaced out in random areas). That and this is a rather densly populated area, and also a heavy tourist area, so come summertime there is people from down south coming up here to walk through our tree'd areas for no apparent reason, just to take in the 'northern beauty' or whatever bullshit trip their on. (I actually like and appreciate nature, just get bitter when my growing gets interfered upon, haha).

I have some ideas for making the area unsuitable for animals (mainly a bit of chicken wire, barb, and some creative placement), plus the other people I've talked to who have tried tree-growing (as an experiment) we're quite successfull, hence why I'm thinking about trying it exclusively this year... what do I got to lose really, if it works it works, if not I'm not really in much worse shape than a regular season outdoors... still got the indoors


Cutting the top off of some trees isn't very hard, I take it you didn't build a lot of tree forts when you were a kid? If you're cutting off say the top 20 feet of a tree or anything ridiculous like that (10 feet even), then yeah tricky.... but the top 5 feet or less of a tree is pretty easy to saw off guys, if there is 2 of you up in that tree it should only take a few minutes. In fact, if my memory serves me correct there was a gentleman on RIU last year who grew in a pine tree that he had taken the top off of, and there was pictures... for him, getting the top off was not a big deal at all, nor has it ever been for myself or anyone else I know. I'm not planning on doing mine right on the top though, but rather spacing individual plots out among the tree in platforms, and then clearing any unnessceary foliage that would be blocking light. Plants will be LST'ed to maximize light getting to the bud sites.

I believe PumpkinRoller, I was thinking about setting up a 'central watering spot' in a taller tree, where I could then water all the plants in various trees from (or preferably, the autowaterer would). If he's got an automatic watering system with 30 gallon resovoir, it isn't too hard to believe that between him and a friend they were able to get water up there. A rope, a pulley (actually this probably isn't even needed) and a 15 2L bottles... person on the ground attached rope to water bottle, person in tree pulls it up, pours, sends back down, repeat... wouldn't take very long. When I was about 14 or 15, me and my friends actually tried to put cement in a treehouse we had built... I forget the logic behind this (more strength? and someone had the pipedream idea of building a fireplace). Anyway, we took what must've been 20 small bags of concrete up into the tree fort, and each one of these bags would weigh substantially more than a 2L bottle of water, and we were able to pull them up one at a time into the tree fort in a rather short period of time (from between after school before going home for supper). So if 2 14/15 year olds could pull up 20 bags of cement in about 90 minutes without hustling TOO hard, I'm sure some adults could pull up 10-15 bottles of water into a tree pretty easily.... What kinda pump system do you got going PumpkinRoller? is it a commercial product or something you rigged up yourself... any pics or diagrams or anything explaining it? I'm pretty curious now. Thanks.

-North East Mike is climbin' like a monkey.

hey guys i got the pics on my phone but i dont get the pic messaing. is there another way to get them on my computer? i picked the auto waterer up at home depot, $70, its a little expensive but well worth it. dont need a pump cuz the tanks up higher than all the pots so gravity takes care of that. i didnt really consider squirrels a threat to marijuana lol. i guess if they become a nusance ill put a chicken wire cage around them.

did your phone come with a usb cable for your computer if it did you can upload to your computer,then upload to here

Sorry no cables. can i get one at radioshack or smomethin?

you can certainly try.if they dont have one they should be able to order one for your phone,

Im planning to do the same thing but a bit further north.. In Scandinavia about 60 degrees north. My plan is to put many 4 week old indoor the church clones into big buckets and get them to sunny spots in different trees. Im planning to put them out in the beginning of june, but Im worried about the lighting. The indoor clones are on 20/4 lighting now but I need them to go directly into flowering in june so that they get buds by mid-september (later and it gets too cold). Have you got any opinions about what I should do? Also, why the flowerbed solution? I was planning on just cutting the top off a pine getting a bucket with some drainage up there and tie it to the tree on top of a branch...

Also, this is my first post thanks for reading

the reason for the flowerbed was to make something a bit more stable then hanging buckets... maybe i'm just paranoid, but if a hanging bucket fell or keeled over i'd feel like an idiot... but i guess if it's secured tightly with enough tie ropes this shouldn't happen (unless the branches that the ropes are secured too twist in heavy wind).

another reason for the 'floating flowerbed' is to maximize the amount of room the roots have to grow, be easy to hide, and to make something i could easily take to, and assemble in the tree. big pots (that would contain an equal amount of room for the roots) i imagine would work just as good, and hide just as well (if not easier), but might be bigger to get up in the tree than a couple pieces of wood that would be assembled up there (depending on pot size, obviously a really small pot would be easy to climb up with).

really though, im just being neurotic, im sure using a big plastic/metal/whatever pot would work just as well as my idea for what is basically assembling a square wooden pot...

the keeling sounds really bad i agree. I think I will tie the bucket with metal strips and try to get it to rely on the stem, not the branch.

wtf is so hard about pulling up a few gallons of water with a rope 10 times?
I have to regularly carry 5 gallon jugs of water by hand up two flights of stairs. I carry one 5 gallon jug in each hand. Using a pully system would be a walk in the park...