How To Plant In A Pot Without Drainage Holes

New pot – Be sure to pick a new pot that is slightly larger and has drainage holes. With some simple tips and tricks, potting your houseplants is easy.

It can thus be startling and downright shocking when the plant finds itself uprooted and moved to a new location. Gardeners often need to transplant whatever they’re growing to protect the plant from the cold or move it to a larger container. However, many novices will rapidly discover that this can result in death, dying, or ill plants that don’t grow.

You’ll be encouraging deep, healthy roots that anchor the plant AND provide it more access to water and nutrients. If it doesn’t, try drilling a hole or two while the plant is still potted to avoid moving the plant unnecessarily. When a plant suffers from wilted leaves after repotting, along with a host of other symptoms, it’s usually caused by the way it was treated during the transplant process.

When buying a new plant, ask a local greenhouse or garden center for proper care instructions. If you’ve got a plant such as the birds nest fern then you may want to increase the humidity in its vicinity.

One of the worst culprits is repotting the plant at the wrong time. Plants are especially vulnerable right before they begin to bloom, so always avoid transplanting in the spring. Even out the potting soil on top, making sure to leave the soil line an inch or so from the top. If your plant is root-bound — with roots growing in tight circles around the base of the plant — unbind them as best you can and give them a little trim.

This is key to avoiding a big mess after each watering session. Without them, you’d find a a nice wet patch in your home surrounding the pot. Whilst that may be fine as a one off, if you’re doing it consistently in the same place, it could lead to rot in your actual home in places such as wooden floorboards.

The plant is basically parched, Gutierrez said, and the salt and minerals in our water tend to accumulate unhealthily in the soil. They thought they were helping, she said, but instead the plants were suffocating in standing water or rotting from perpetually soggy roots. The nursery pots have excellent drainage, unlike a lot of decorative pots.

Next steps in the research will be to test touch response in crop species and to look at the potential consequences of breeding plants which are less touch sensitive. "Likewise, when plants grow so close together that they touch one another, the retarded growth defence response may optimise access to sunlight. La Trobe University-led research has found that plants are extremely sensitive to touch and that repeated touching can significantly retard growth.

Use a sharp knife or pruning shears for this job, removing as much as the bottom third of the root ball if necessary. Don’t be surprised if what you cut off is a thick tangle of root tissue. Also make three or four vertical cuts about a third of the way up the remaining root ball. Now your plant is ready to be watered—and even though the plant now has proper drainage, you still want to be sure not to overwater it.

It can take weeks to become adjusted to a houseplants new location, so just water regularly and ensure all sunlight and nutrient needs are met in the new space. For example, if all of the roots need to be dug up to move the plant, don’t shake them around or bump into them. Also avoid shaking the dirt away from the root, as this disturbs the plant and confuses its system. If the roots are so tight that you can't get your fingers between them, try soaking the entire root ball in water for a few hours, or overnight.