How to Do Plant Repotting

How to Do Plant Repotting - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Lots of times people have a plant that is really breakable and fragile, but you need to give it a bigger home, maybe you want it to go into a nice hanging basket like we are going to do here, or just a bigger pot, or maybe it is just into the ground, and without this plant by the time you get it planted you are going to have broken the branches, you are going to be sweating and swearing, it might even lead to a divorce and homelessness, all these things! So this is a really important plant here. So we are going to take this impatiens and we are going to take it out of the pot, we are going to set it aside on the table here by itself. This is going to be pot A, this is pot B and in this case it is one of those nice, natural fiber baskets that we are going to make a hanging basket. You take pot B and you put some planter mix, now that is that nice, loose, planter mix that has lots of drainage, good drainage, not some dirt you dug up out of the garden, and then you are going to take pot A and put it inside here. This is important. Then, you take and add your soil mix and you do not have to worry about it, just dump it in, this is quick and easy, fast. Why do not you have to worry about it? Because there are not any plants here, there are not any branches to break, there are not any roots to hurt, you can just put it all in here, so in just a few minutes - now if you are doing this in the ground you are going to dig your hole and take the gallon can or the whatever you are taking out of and that is going to be pot A. So here is pot A then we are going to push down on our planter mix all the way around. We want this nice and well soaked-in, in this case I have a wet pot of potting mix here, and let's just say we are going to make this a little prettier, so we want to put something on the outside edge, so this is a type of potos, so before we put the big plant in, we take our hands and we just move the soil down there and we stick it in. Now we could take this apart, and put little pieces all the way around here, most of these kinds of plants divide very easily, if they do not divide and you do it then you are in big trouble. But, I am assuming you are smart enough to be able to figure out whether you can do that or not. So we are going to put these little bits at the edge here to add a little bit of decorations. Impatiens is probably going to overtake them but for right now it is going to look good. This one, now you can always, if you are doing this, flatten the root ball, like that, so you can get it in here. Pot A is still in here holding the place, so you are going to do all your prep-work, get the soil around here, there. Then its all in there. Now, if you are doing this at home, your planter mix is probably a little dryer than this. Here comes the painless part, we want this soil to be well watered in and sunk down if it is going to, so you are going to take the watering can and water it all in, then you get to sit down and if you are healthy, have a glass of iced tea. If you want to be happier, you get to have a glass of wine. And guess which one I am going to choose to have? If you are potting more than one basket you do not get a glass of wine with each one. That is too much. After you have had your glass of wine, the water has soaked in, you may want to put a little more soil, I see that there is a spot here where we did not get quite enough, so we are going to add a little bit more. That is the purpose of letting it sit for awhile. Then we are going to carefully take pot A out, just lift it out, what we have here then is a perfect, muffin-tin mold, exactly the size of the plant we are putting in there. So the plant, our lovely new variety of impatiens that has the bigger eye, it almost looks like an azalea. We are going to tease the roots just a little bit, since it is going into the same kind of soil that it grew in, it will grow right in. With one swift, fluid, easy motion, we drop it into the hole, push it down with our fingers. The plant is potted, we hope you are not too potted from the wine, the whole thing has been totally painless, and all you have to do is put on the hangers or water the plants in, and you are done. That is Evelyn's patented, painless, potting, plan.