This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Roots
We have fairly recently retired to live in Spain and have quite a large garden. We have bought quite a lot of plants from local nurseries with varying degrees of success. Recently we dug up one that had died and noticed that the root ball was still in the shape of the pot it had come out of. Should we have teased the roots out before planting into the ground??
0
Posts
yes, if something is very pot bound the roots don't break out of the pot shape. Not always but often enough to make it worthwhile teasing them out. I have an old dinner fork that does the job really well
In the sticks near Peterborough
There seem to be two schools of thought about this, but I feel that if the plant has been in the pot for a long time and has a pot shaped root ball, then teasing out is a good idea. I also remove the top layer of compost and the bottom layer if possible, to give it some temptation with new compost, hopefully it will put new roots into this.
Sometimes if I buy something that's very potbound I pot it on and nurture it until it's just filling the new pot and them plant it out
In the sticks near Peterborough
thank you for your advice - will tease out in future.