How To Repot a Plant in a New Container Photo Tutorial…
Have you ever procrastinated about caring for your plants merely because your didn’t know how to do it? Well, that rang true in my case. I have this house plant that my sister gave me, which my other sister had given her. It is a beautiful, thriving plant but the stems are pushed all the way to the edges. It actually needed to be repotted about 8 years ago so I’m not sure how it has managed to survive this long. It was now time to repot this plant.
I had no idea how to put it in a bigger pot (which sits in a decorative pot) so didn’t do anything but water it. It was even daunting to find a new inner pot because I did not know what to look for. So, I enlisted the help of a friend who loves gardening and renewed my quest to keep this plant alive.
I set out to buy a pot the right size and bought 2 that were both too big. I measured the decorative pot’s opening with my fingers because I knew that I would forget to bring a measuring tape with me. Then I found one for $2.50 and returned the others. Then my friend bought me some potting soil and came over to get to work.
The first thing we did was try to loosen the dirt around the edges with small shovels. Before we tried to take it out, we prepared the new pot. My friend suggested to put a few rocks on the bottom as this is a gardener’s trick to improve water drainage. We then covered the bottom of the pot about 1/4-1/3 full. We gently pulled the plant out and fortunately it came out smoothly.
The plan was very much root-bound (roots were wrapped all around and you could hardly see any dirt) and my friend cut some away with her garden knife so the roots could grow again. The plant was gently placed in the new pot and additional soil was patted down around it. Then we gave it a nice drink and let it soak it up.
It wasn’t that hard and the plant is now very happy. If you have a plant that really needs a bigger pot, be nice to it and repot it into a new home before the next decade comes.
