Place the plant exactly in the centre of the new pot, both for the sake of appearance, and in order that it may have an equal amount of fresh compost, and therefore of fresh food, all round it. Next, insert new compost into the space between pot and plant; press it gently downwards, either with the fingers or with a flat piece of wood. Keep adding fresh compost; pressing it down until the old soil is just, but only just, covered with the new compost. Except in the case of long-term woody plants, a potting stick is now seldom used to firm compost. Soil-based composts are pressed down more firmly than their peat-based counterparts, but fingers and a sharp tap of the pot on the bench can do the job quite well. If peat-based composts are consolidated unduly air is [Read more...]

There is a great deal more to potting plants than the mere placing of the roots in a pot and filling in with compost. In the first place, judging whether a plant even needs potting or not is a matter for knowledge and experience; it may be just as bad to disturb a flourishing specimen unnecessarily as to neglect re-potting when it should be done. The general rule is that a young, rapidly growing plant should be moved into a slightly larger pot as soon as its roots have penetrated the compost in the smaller pot, but before they have become a densely tangled mass running round and round the outside of the root ball, i.e. have become pot-bound, and will then have to be maintained by watering and regular feeding. Clean pots (and crocks when used) are highly essential, [Read more...]

Clay Pots: For nearly a hundred years flower pots were made exclusively of clay, and although they are still used they are, to a large extent, now replaced by pots made from other materials, chiefly plastics. Traditionally clay pots were sold in numbered sizes which indicated the number of pots of a particular size that could be made from a certain quantity of clay. With the advent of plastic pots the ‘cast’ sizes gradually fell into disuse and the top diameter of the pots was used instead. The table which follows gives these sizes and the actual dimensions of the pot. [Read more...]

 Recently it has become standard practice for both professional horticulturists and private gardeners to sterilize all soil to be used for composts for propagation and potting of plants. The reason is that bacteria, fungus spores, insect pests and weed seeds which would be harmful to plants are thereby destroyed. However, the soil itself is not improved by sterilization, and unless it is very carefully done, there may be a serious deterioration in soil fertility, due to excess sterilizing; inadequate treatment, on the other hand, will be a waste of time and money, and will leave the plants’ enemies untouched. Various methods of sterilizing are practiced, such as saturation with solutions [Read more...]