Odd repotting advice

[paghat]

A webpage of the Australian Department of Environment & Heritage National Botanic Garden

gives this advice:

"Plants in containers perform better when root-bound and should not be transferred to a too-large pot when re-potting. The use of terracotta pots provides a simple method of repotting. The pot can be cracked all over with a hammer and the plant with its cracked container can be repotted into a larger pot lined with fresh soil mix. This allows the roots to penetrate into the new mix while the root system is held firmly together by the cracked pot."

I've never heard of this method of repotting without removing the prevous pot. Cracking an otherwise intact pot does not strike me as much of a guarantee that roots could easily get through the barrier to the next zone of soil. Nor have I ever noticed a problem of rootbound plants coming apart by being removed from pots. It has been my experience that roots SHOULD be broken up a bit around the edges when rootbound. It just seems like loony advice. Has anyone ever heard of this repotting without removing the old pot before?

-paghat the ratgirl

[Doug Kanter]

Sounds utterly stupid to me.

[Grandpa]

In other words, you think its a crackpot idea? ;-)

[G Henslee]

It's done to prevent the kangas from eating the tender roots so easily. ;-)

[Cereus-validus.......]

Its a crackpot idea by definition!!!!

[Travis]

I have never heard of such a thing. Maybe it is because the Australians upside down.

;-)

[Derryl]

Hi Paghat

I agree that this is a antithetical method of repotting. Root bound plants can be tapped out of their pots. I run a knife through the roots and repot into a good 1-1-1 mix. Soil, peat and perlite.

Derryl in Calgary. [e-mail]

[Toni]

Me too. And can you imagine the weight on one of those plants after a couple/three repots?

[Salty Thumb]

[e-mail] (paghat) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Your link is advice from 1986 for growing a Hoya in Australia. Aside from being good advice for fast-growing root climbers (whatever that means), it's good advice in general, because being root bound Down Under helps keep the plant in the pot. Otherwise, the plant would fall and fly out into space and quite possibly cause a mass extinction in some other solar system. In fact if you break into a certain Defense Department computer and read some of the classified SETI transcripts, the second most common intercept from Rigel Kentaurus is 'ipso zeebop maxturd treblesmurf blunderwipen' or roughly translated 'oh maxturd, some moron repotted another Hoya'.

Everything you didn't need to know about cracked pot, potted crack, potted pot, potted crack pot, etc is right here:

[Jen]

I often feel like I'm upside down.

Oh yeah that's because I'm in Australia!

I've never heard of this cracked pot thing, but I have heard that Hoyas prefer to be rootbound, especially if there is trouble with flowering. I always assumed it was because in their natural habitat, the soil was much firmer. I dunno though. I'm sure it wasn't actually an Australian book though.

Jen

[presley]

How DO the people below the equator keep from falling off the globe? I never understood that...........LOL

And are the globes they use in their classrooms upside down?

[Jen]

Actually because we're right down the bottom, we're actually keeping the rest of you from falling off.

We've got the world on our shoulders!

Jen