This is Byron Martin, owner of Logee's
Plants for Home and Garden. And this is
what we send you in the mail from our
mail order company when you order plants
from us. So, the plants are packed,
and when we got them, we open the box up, and we're
going to remove the plants.
Now there's stakes often, in there, to
keep plants from shipping. This is how we
pack. The plants are rolled up in newspaper,
so we undo that. And then, we have a plastic wrap
that goes around it; this is to keep the
soil from falling out of the pot during
shipping.
Remove the plastic, then there's packing on
top of that, that allows the soil to be held
in place firmly. And so now we have, this
is what we ship. [What plant is that?] This is a
Gardenia, and this is what we ship as a
two-and-a-half-inch pot. So, a plant like
this, which is fairly tall, and has a good,
strong root system, needs to get moved
up. And, generally, it was always said
that you need to let a week settle
before you pot, and so on.
Oftentimes, when plants are shipped, they come in
and the leaves are a little crunched and
squished down, and they don't look that
great, so you can take them out and leave
them in a flat for a day or two. Just, when
you first get them out of the pot-- box--
remember to check for watering; if they
didn't dry out; if they need a drink, give
them a good drink. You can set them someplace for a
day or two, to let the leaves unfold, or which
we often do when we receive plants in
the mail, we just simply pot them up. And
so, what we're going to do is, we take our
label out-- remember to keep your label and
your plant together, because if you lose it,
you may not remember what it is or you
may not be able to identify it. And then,
what we do is, we tap the plant out of the pot.
You can see we have a good root system
here. Now this is a two-and-a-half and
we're going into a four-and-a-half inch
pot, which is an increase of about two
inches-- they could go to bigger; you
generally don't want to go any smaller
unless you're working with really tiny
items, like succulents
or some small begonias and things like
that. And one of the things that has been
taught in horticulture over the years, is that
you want to fray the root ball before
you pot, but that is really not a
good idea. It's a good idea if you're
planting outside in the ground, and you're
working with plants in the Ericaceae
family; blueberries, rhododendrons, and stuff
that have very tight roots. In our work here, we
never fray the roots, and we never get
a root ball that actually won't
transition out into the mix. So, simply
don't disturb it-- it puts more stress on the
plant. And so what we do is, we take our
pot that's empty, we put a little soil in
the bottom.
Generally, you want to end up with this
soil level here, just slightly below, and
then what we do is, we center the plant--
that's always important-- and we fill it
up with potting mix, like this. [Fill it all the
way to the top.] Fill it all the way to the top;
good drink, give it a good tap, like that,
in there, there we [Don't you want to
leave a little bit of room for watering?]
Well the thing is, is that, as the plant gets
watered, and as it-- the soil settles,
you'll see there will be probably a
1/2 an inch-- 3/8 of an
inch drop in the soil level from here
that will allow for a reservoir as you
water it, as the plant grows. [And this gardenia is what
variety and where would you put it?] This is a Belmont and
so you want to make sure you put the
label back in, and then what we do is, we
get our water and give it a good drink.
[Put in a sunny window?] Yeah, this particular
plant wants to go on a sunny window, and
although gardenias are known to be grown
cold when they're in containers, like
this. The best way to grow them is above 60
degrees, if you can. If you do grow them
cold, make sure you really are
accurate on your watering, meaning dry,
wet, dry, wet, and reduce your fertilizer,
or eliminate your fertilizer during cold. So
then what we have is a-- another plant
here. This is a Hibiscus, and this is our
4-inch pot size. And again, we rolled it
up, unwrapped it. You want to remove your plastic,
and you want to remove your packing,
and save your label again. Now, this plant
here is already in a 4-inch pot. You
can see we've tapped it out, and there's a
fairly good root system, there, that's ready...
It's ready to be moved up; you can
see the height of the plant is a good
size. And so now, we're going is from a 4" to a 6", and
it's the same procedure. Put a little soil in
the bottom... soil in the bottom, center our plant...
Fill it up with soil; we go around, and around. [And why do
you only go up, like, a few pot sizes-- a
couple inches?] Generally, it's a good
idea not to over-pot things. There we go with
our plant. And it's generally a good idea not
to over-pot things, now you could go from a
two-and-a-half to a six; you could go from
two-and-a-half to an eight; and in the
nursery industry it's often done where,
they take a small planet called liner,
which is a young propagation, and theyll
move them up into big, larger containers.
The thing is, is that, there are some plants
that when they get stuck into these big
masses of wet soil, you lose your root
system. And the plant will collapse. So,
for gardeners that have the time, and can
devote a little more attention to it
moving your plants up 2 inches, 3
inches at a time actually eliminates any
of that risk of loss.