Repotting Your Plants to Maximize the Growing Season
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Repotting Your Plants to Maximize the Growing Season
It's spring! You know what that means... GROWING SEASON IS STARTING
This is the absolute best time to repot a plant to unlock the true potential of growing season! If your plant is root bound, it may be preventing your plant's growth and slowly killing it.
Repotting early in the growing season allows your plant's roots to quickly grow into the new pot and prevent possible issues from repotting. (We will go over these issues below)
Why Do You Need to Repot Your Plants?
Over time your plants can grow too large for their pots and can basically suffocate themselves. The roots will take up all the space in the pot and leave little room for the soil to hold moisture, eventually leading to the roots dying.
Orrrrr maybe your plant is doing just fine and you want to transfer it to a cute new pot that you bought. That's also a good reason!
How to Tell if Your Plants Need Repotting
If roots are poking out of the bottom holes in the pot or growing up and over the sides of the pot.
You pull up the plant and see the roots are FULL. The picture below is an extreme example, but it's an excellent way to show how the roots push out all the soil's room to hold moisture.
The plant has been looking sad for no reason. If you can't tell why a plant is miserable and have tried other remedies with no luck, gently pull it out of the pot and check the roots. It might just need a bigger pot. If it doesn't seem rootbound, just put it back down; no harm done!
You just haven't done it in a while. It's generally a good rule of thumb to repot a plant every 1-3 years to allow more space to grow and refresh the nutrients by using fresh soil. As plants get larger and the pots get bigger, you're going to want to push this towards the 3-year gap.
What Will You Need?
Your plant (of course)
Pot - 2 inches bigger
Soil - Recommend using a premixed type or mixing your own to closely match what's already in the pot
A place to work and get messy - If you're in an apartment or can't go outside due to the weather, I posted a link for a wonderful Plant Repotting Mat that I use below!
Water to "lock in" the soil after repotting
Gloves (optional - I enjoy getting my hands dirty, but some may not)
If you're repotting a cactus, you'll definitely want thick gloves. For small cacti, you can also use kitchen tongs to help hold them!
Plant Repotting Mat — twitter.com
This works so great for small spaces and prevents making a huge mess!
Possible Issues and How to Fix / Prevent Them
Wilting Leaves - Seeing a little bit of mild droopiness after repotting is normal and may even last a couple of days. Your plant should bounce back after a short adjustment period.
Transplant Shock - When your plant starts drooping, leaves turn yellow, and other general unhappy plant signs after repotting.
These issues can be caused by multiple stresses put on your plant. One example is drastically changing the soil type. If your plant is already struggling and you are changing the soil type to help cure it, that is totally fine, but if your plant seems healthy, changing the soil type can cause a lot of stress to the plant. If the plant is happy, try to match the soil type as closely as possible to what it was previously planted in.
Another stress than can cause transplant shock is putting the plant in a different lighting condition after repotting it. This can be too many changes at once for the plant to properly adjust and can cause issues.
It's best to avoid transplant shock by properly repotting your plant like we learned today, but what do you do if you realize it's happening?
Return your plant to the location it was in before moving it
Cut off any dead leaves to promote growth
Feed your plant a small dose of fertilizer or plant food to help give it a boost (use this as a last resort. It's usually recommended to wait a few weeks after repotting before fertilizing to let your plant adjust)
Too Big of a Pot
Avoid transferring your plant from a small pot to a much larger pot. A small plant in a large pot will be unable to spread its roots far enough to cover all the dirt in the pot. That means there will be no efficient absorption of the water in these parts of the soil. The damp dirt will become stagnant, grow bacteria that can cause root rot, and eventually kill your plant.
Make sure when you pick a new pot, you only increase the pot's diameter by 1-2 inches. This small step in size will allow the roots to spread out without leaving pockets of wet, untouched soil. Below is a size reference of different pots in case you are looking to order some and aren't sure how the sizes match up.
Plant Was Unhealthy Before Repotting
Repotting can cause a lot of stress on a plant. If the plant wasn't doing too great before repotting, it might cause enough stress to kill your plant. Unless you are repotting to fix an issue like root rot or a root-bound plant, it is better to wait until you can fix the current issue before attempting to repot.
Final Notes
Thank you for reading my newsletter! I hope you enjoyed it and look forward to many more. I will be sending these out twice a month and may increase frequency based on feedback and engagement.
I would greatly appreciate sharing this with friends and family, or give me a shoutout on Twitter (@HobbyistPlant) and let me know you enjoyed it :)
This Weeks Happy Planter Submission
She’s a Goldilocks Creeping Jenny, I’ve had her for about two weeks. This is the prettiest plant I’ve had yet, but it’s my favorite specifically because the vibrant color always positively shifts my mood, I love the way the leaves drape down it’s so elegant to me and reflects the way I see myself…The plant care matches my daily lifestyle, and I enjoy watching her grow quickly :)
Thanks for the submission by @muvaempresss :) That's a beautiful plant, and I hope it grows like crazy!
That’s All For Now!
I will continue to improve these newsletters and add more exciting content as I go. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Talk soon! Feel free to enjoy my content on Twitter until the next newsletter :)
-Houseplant Hobbyist