In order to repot your favorite plants, you need to have the knowledge because if you are not doing it properly, you may likely lose your plant. Whenever your plants become pot bound, the plant\’s roots will fill up the entire pot and it will not be having enough soil to hold any water for the plant thus the water will be running through to the saucer without providing any nutrients to the plants. It is recommended that you repot your plant once a year and you can notice the situation when the root of the plant has comes out of the pot very easily while the soil of the plant have built up with salts and other impurities coming from your tap water resources. Below are some of the tips and information that you can do in order to repotting your plants the easier way.
What you need:
- Choosing a proper size container
- Need to do potting of soil
- Repotting
- Knife
- Watering
Method:
- First of all, you have to choose the proper size container in order to do your repotting of the plants. Do not use a container which is too big because it will kill your plant due to that extra soil will held lots of excess water and its roots will rot. Try to choose a pot which is one size bigger that the present pot so that your plant will received the right amount of freshly new soil and the right amount of room to spread out a bit. You also have to make sure that the pot that you have chosen comes with a drainage holes in the bottom. This will help reduce excess water and impurities from building up inside the soil and you also have to ensure that a good fitting saucer is placed under the pot for catching any water that runs out from the bottom of the pot.
- The next steps is to do potting of soils such as soils for succulents, soil for African Violets, soil for cuttings and other types. Unless you are not repotting for a specific types of plants, try to use an all purpose mix kind of soils and always check the soil whether the new potting soil comes with fertilizer in it or whether it is suitable to your plant or not.
- It is recommended that you gather all your plants together and do your repotting all at once in an area which provides some space for to work in and clear of other materials. Most of the plants that need to be repotted can be pop out easily from its pot, but if it is difficult to take it out, try to use a knife around the inside edge in order to loosen it up. Once it is out of the pot, check whether its roots are healthy or not and if it looks squishy or rotten looking, you have to immediately change them.
- Make sure that the new pot that you are going to use is clean and disease free. If it was diseased, you have to sterilize the pot with bleach before you start to use it for repotting the plant. Apart from that, you have to cover any drainage holes using small rocks or bits of newspapers and also ensure that the water can still seep out. Then, place the plant into the new pot and cover the soil onto the plant according to the same height as before. The root of the plant need to be loosen-up a little and this exercise should be done gently in order not to damage the roots and also provide them growing outward into the new soil. Also make sure that the plant is straight as you fill the pot with the soil, tamp out any air pockets in the soil and do some firm presses so that it is anchor to the new freshly soil.
- Once the repotting process is finished, the plant needs a good watering so that the water will run down through the soil and also eliminates the remaining air pocket which still resides in the soil. Also you have to ensure that the water runs out through the bottom drainage hole of the pot.
Additional Reading:
http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2008/11/repotting_plants_the_easy_way.html
http://www.plant-care.com/repotting-house-plants.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/108520/repotting_your_plants_made_easy.html
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegreaves/2890045771/
