🌿 GROW Repotting Tips🌿

Needing to repot at home? Here are our GROW tips to help get you started:

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The Quick:

1. Your plant should be fully root bound before repotting.

2. The new pot should be no larger than 2 inched bigger that the fully rootball. 

3. We check for repotting in the spring and fall. We avoid the active growing season and the dormant season. 

4. The type of soil and type of pot are very important to long term plant health.

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All the Details:

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Does it need to be repotted?

Repotting plants happens a lot less than you think.  Most of our houseplants only need to be repotted every 2-3 years. To know if your houseplant needs to be repotted, the roots should be fully swirled in the pot to create what we call "a root basket"- pictured above. The plant shown above is ready to go into the next size pot. If the roots don't look like the one above, consider just a simple soil refresh and place it back into its original container.

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What kind of pot?

​We deal with two types of pots here at GROW, planters and cache pots. A planter is a pot with a drainage hole. A cache pot (catch pot) is a planter with no drainage hole and therefore is not intended to ever be planted in. It is intended to "catch" the growers pot. If you have a cache pot you love, as we all do, keep your plant in a plastic grower's pot. 

At GROW, the plastic grower's pot is our preferred method. We often replant our own personal plants from one grower's pot into another when it's time. Then we can place this plastic pot into any decorative vessel we would like. 

We avoid planters with attached saucers as they don't drain well enough for us to feel comfortable with. 

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What kind of soil?

Your houseplant requires a good quality houseplant soil and we highly recommend Fox Farms Ocean Forest and GROW's in-house blend. We strongly avoid the most common big box store brand.

Succulents and Cacti require a good quality cactus soil.

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To Repot or Refresh?

Sometimes we don't know if we are refreshing or repotting until we get a good look at the roots. If the plant looks good and the roots are tight and fully swirling, we repot. If the roots don't fill out the container and are loose, we just refresh the soil and even pot it down a size if needed. 

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A Step by Step:

Ok! You have decided that your plant needs to be repotted!

Here are the steps we would take to make it a successful experience:

1. Set up a workspace with a mat, box or bag to help clean up the mess. 

2. Make sure you have soil, the new vessel and a clean pair of scissors.

3. Carefully wiggle the plant out of the pot and expose the root system. 

4. Examine the roots and trim off any dead or severely damaged roots.

5. Loosen the roots slightly but do not fully strip the soil. You will still need a secure root system.

6. Cover the new drainage hole of the pot with mesh or a coffee filter and pour a small amount of new soil into the new vessel. 

7. Place your plant into the new vessel, making sure that the new vessel is only an inch or two larger than the rootball of your plant.

8. Fill in around with new soil.

9. Do not pack the soil super tight as this will suffocate the roots. Do not, bury the plant deeper that it was in its original pot as this can cause damage to the base of the plant. 

10. Top water on your first water to get the roots to settle and then resume your routine of bottom watering on the next watering. 

11. Place in a bright space for a week or so to let acclimate to the change.

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Lastly, here are a few important things to note:

1. Repotting isn't going to fix poor lighting or improper care. Often times, we see struggling plants and it has nothing to do with the pot and everything to do with the environment. 

2. We have repotted thousands of plants in our 5 years of offering this service and we have never seen a plant in distress from being too pot bound. However, we have seen hundreds in destress due to incorrect soil, incorrect pot size and incorrect style pot. 

3. If you have decided that its not time to repot but your plant has been in the same soil for over a year, its a good time to start a good fertilizing routine. Our favorite: We the Wild GROW Concentrate.