How to Re-pot a Plant

A few years ago, I really missed how many plants my Dad had around the house. I had been living with B for a few years at this point and starting to make little tweaks to our home to make it more our style. One little thing that has had a big impact is indoor plants. My Dad has a green thumb, so I grew up with many (many, many, many) plants all around my house. I didn’t notice their absence when I first moved out, but a few years later, I did.

My little collection (please don't mind the massive air conditioner)

There were a lot of growing pains (just ask my friends and family how many I accidentally killed), but I finally got into a groove and have a happy little corner of greens. One of the first things I’ve always done when I bought a new plant was re-pot it. The easiest pots for me to monitor how much I’d watered are the ones with the holes in the bottom, so if I do too much, instead of drowning the plant (yes this is a real thing!), it would overflow out onto the floor.

When I’m going to repot a plant, I pick out a bigger (normally cuter) pot. I only pick a bigger pot if the roots look like they have nowhere to go in the current pot. Roots need a lot of room to grown and spread out, but don’t go too big with the next pot. Try to find one that’s the “next size up” from the one the plant is currently in.  Once you’ve selected the new pot, fill it a little less than halfway with dirt. Depending on the shape of the old and new pots, you may need to put more or less dirt in the new pot.

A lot of plants I’ve bought easily pulled out of the pot it came in, sometimes I would have to cut the pot (those were normally the cheap plastic ones anyway). Once you’ve gotten the plant out of the old pot, I actually break up the dirt a little, in order for the roots to be able to expand out in the new pot. You will definitely want to do this is if the roots are just going around in circles where the old pot once was restricting its growth (again, roots need more space to grow). Be careful not to break the roots, because sometimes that will kill the whole plant.

Once the plant is in the new pot, fill in all around the plant with fresh dirt. I really like this kind. Then I also like to give it a little water with Miracle Grow here and place it in the sun (or where ever the tag with its info suggests. I’ve often found that plants that supposedly don’t like sunlight, do and vice versa. Just be sure to pay attention to if it starts wilting or dying. Moving it can make a world of difference! Also don’t forget to water! Or in my case, don’t water too much!