hi everyone hope you're having an awesome week if it's your first time here my name is james and
i'm from sydney australia ALOCASIA you didn't know today's video is going to be about how
to repot small indoor plants i'm going to give you some tips and tricks on how you can do so
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so you don't miss any updates when new videos drop hang tight so i woke up super excited the
other morning to film this repotting video for you guys only when i opened my bags of soil i
found that they were infested with fungus gnats which was super super frustrating
i know that this particular brand over here the scotts osmocote is known to have a lot
of fungus gnats and all there's heaps of heaps of complaints online about it i actually think
that any commercially produced bags of soil cannot be guaranteed to be fungus gnat free
i did upload a video previously on how to destroy fungus gnats and a kind commenter by the name of
Nyawid actually gave me this tip basically saying i boil water and drench the new soil
first cooking then leave to cool thanks Nyawid for the tip so before repotting this alocasia
i actually did that and i'll walk you through quickly before this and reminder this is
optional so firstly i'm going to shovel some of this infested soil into this plastic black
water planter that i purchased from bunnings i've also placed the saucer at the bottom
of the pot so i don't make a mess just note i chose this pot in particular as a water planter
it's got a lot more drainage holes on the side as you can see i've been advised that you can also
add some pearlite coco peat or dry cocoa chips to your soil to facilitate the drying process later
secondly i'm going to go grab my kettle and fill it up with water and then proceed to boil
now i'm going to remove the saucer beneath i've placed the pot on top of my outdoor drain
i was wary of the plastic melting because it's boiling water but we'll see how we go watch me
pour this boiling water all over the soil and watch these gnats squirm okay so i didn't expect
the hot water to splash everywhere but no use crying ever spilt milk i'll clean that up later
i actually reached out to Nyawid and asked him for advice and he uses a bucket
anyway you can learn from my mistake when you're done leave it outdoors to cool down i've been told
that you can leave it to cool for two to three hours before repotting but i've left mine out
for two to three days so now i've got the same saw that you saw in the previous segment over here and
i can confirm that when i shake it so far i don't see any gnats flying out so hopefully the boiling
water had actually killed them now let's get back to regular programming let's start this repotting
now what you're going to need is the plant that you intend to repot the soil that you intend
to use the desired pot that you want to place your plant in your watering can that is already
pre-filled with water a chopstick now i'm going to walk you through the hack a little bit later
and now the following items are optional i actually grab a cardboard box on my way out
from shopping at bunnings and just reuse this when i'm repotting that way i can repurpose the
cardboard boxes and also not make a mess on my table also you could use a shovel if you want to
shovel the soil but sometimes i just use my hands because i'm going to get my hands dirty anyway
and of course you can use gloves as well now let's get started i'm going to firstly shovel some of
this soil into the new pot just a few centimetres will be fine just so that the base is covered
cool next grab your plant and then start massaging the base of the pot and then gently pull your
plant out see as you can see this one's quite root bound already and it was ready for a repot
okay give it a gentle shake as like i'm doing right here
just to remove some of that excess soil um so here's my hack i actually grab a chopstick
and start poking it gently to remove some of that old soil
i try not to disturb it too much because you don't want to cause damage to the plant
and yeah this is kind of rock hard already but what i'll do is i'll start massaging it gently
with my fingers just to break some of that up
yeah got to get your hands dirty this is why sometimes you use gloves right
and i just want to break some of this this is why i want to repot this because this was the
original soil that this plant came in and as you can see it's really compact so hardly any water
can actually get through here oh so yeah this is a little bit more than gentle at this point
but yeah this soil is really compact and i really wanted to change the soil here
so don't be alarmed if you lose a little bit of root a little bit is okay but a lot is not
and i'll just keep massaging this a little bit more just to loosen that compact soil up
this is why i've got a tray here so it can catch all of that soil okay all right so
i'll grab a chopstick here and hopefully i can sort of poke that inwards remove some of that
but yeah this is very very tough
but i don't want to cause too much disturbance so
cool
okay if you find that it's going to do a little bit more harm than good and where some of those
roots are starting to break off i would say that you can just start placing it into your desired
pot that your replanting it in and maybe just give it another gentle shake now sometimes i
just run this through tap water just to remove some of the excess but if your soil is compact
there's a little bit of risk there you could be over watering it so i don't recommend that if you
do see that it's quite compact like this one um i know there's been a bit of moss in there so i'm
just gonna gently massage that one a little bit more but yeah be really careful like you don't
want to be disturbing too much of the root ball um and hence this is why i've got the chopstick
to sort of try to thread that out usually if your soil is a little bit more aerated that should
come out a little bit more easier when you're shaking and using the chopstick method but anyway
i'm just going to start replanting this one now and then i'll put this into the new pot
so i've got my hands dirty already instead of using the shovel i'm going to grab my soil
and then just basically put that into the new pot here
hopefully you can see that should be quite easy
yep and then just try to fill the corners
and then what you want to do is tap the sides just that you're removing any of those air pockets
and that your plant is getting all the soil and the roots can touch those nutrients
cool and then fill it up a little bit more to the top
you know i usually gauge about one to two centimetres from what i see
visibly on the top of the pot cool then i'm just going to dust my hands off cool
and then the last step and this is absolutely crucial um you should water your plant because you
have just stressed your plant a little bit luckily i've got a tray under here which will catch the
water so i'll just quickly water this in front of you but yeah you want to just give it a good soak
and wait until the water actually drains through the bottom
this one's a little bit slower because i haven't added perlite into it
the other cases like to be a little bit more on the water retention side when it comes to
soil so i haven't added in my usual ingredients such as charcoal and perlite
but you can with your other plants and it's highly recommended wait until that flows through
cool
and there you pretty much repot your plant so i would highly recommend that you re-pot your
plants in the morning and during spring and summer that's usually when the plant is it's strongest
also if you do it in the morning it'll allow time to photosynthesise during the day
also you've watered it it allows for those other tasks such as transpiration and etc etc
hopefully i've given you some simple tricks on how you can repot small indoor plants
remember if you liked today's video remember to give it a thumbs up hit that subscribe button
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updates when new videos drop now on to plant rants welcome to plant bands and rants where i showcase
some cool funny or interesting plant content that i find online i stumbled upon this interesting
image from instagram where it says do you know that plants can see smell feel and remember
because google is my best friend i just wanted to fact check this one and it looks like it's
true or according to google anyway maybe it's time i play some classical music to
facilitate my plant growth or be more weary when i'm swearing at
my indoor pests my plants are probably hearing me screaming **** fungus gnats