Ready? Set? Repot! Wait. No. Don't do that.
Put down that pot. Take your hands off that scoop...
Here's the step-by-step what to do before, during and after repotting, which ideally starts the day before...
But why bother taking the extra care? Because repotting for your plant, is like major surgery is for us.
Getting in our best health before surgery, allowing the right conditions for recovery, and the right care after surgery, is all just as important for us for a speedy recovery without complications, as it is for our plants.
When plants have problems during recovery after repotting, we call it transplant stress or transplant shock. The good news is what you do before, during and after repotting can make all the difference to a speedy, problem-free recovery for your plants...
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Is repotting the same as potting up?
Before we jump in. Keep in mind repotting and potting up are not technically the same. It's not about what you call it, but about what happens to the roots...
Potting up can be done pretty safely all year-round, causes minimal disruption for roots, and has faster recovery. Potting up involves simply shifting a plant - old potting mix and all - up a pot size, without touching the roots or even loosening the soil.
Instead you add a little new potting mix in the bottom and around the sides of the new pot, with little to no damage or disruption to roots.
Repotting is the big one. It usually involves the removal of old potting mix, which can easily damage roots in the process. It's repotting that has a much higher risk of transplant stress after you're done.
That's one reason repotting is best done before or after the growing season (early Spring to early Autumn are ideal), when conditions support root recovery, although I happily repot in Summer also.
When is it too cold to repot?
As a general rule, repotting is best done when temperatures don't drop below 15 degrees Celsius overnight. That's the minimum most hardier houseplants tolerate. However, since warmth is such a big part of recovery after repotting, if you have a heat mat (and even better, a grow light as well), you can repot any time of year.
What could go wrong when repotting?
Repotting, done well, can result in a happier, healthier plant that bounces back quickly. When repotting goes wrong, you could be dealing with root rot or even plant death. Both are avoidable.
The 'best of the worst' is simply that plants stop growing for a little while after repotting. But done right, they will quickly bounce back and grow better than before.
All going well, most plants fully recover 2 to 4 weeks after repotting and are soon loving life even more than before.
What are the symptoms to watch out for?
Common symptoms of transplant stress after repotting include yellowing leaves, leaf drop, wilting even when watered and small growth or no new growth.
These extra two steps below will help you give your plants the best chances of a speedy recovery, with no complications.
Supplies
Before you start, you ideally want to grab the following...
- The POT you're potting into (more about pot size coming up),
- Enough POTTING MIX,
- SEAWEED or a ROOT health and growth booster (optional but a big part of avoiding transplant shock), a few product options coming up for these,
- FERTILISER (again, optional but very helpful, a few options coming up),
- WATER (of course),
- Also best to have some basic safety gear like a mask to avoid breathing in soil fines and gloves.
- There are other nice-to-haves too, like a potting mat, soil scoop, heat mat, grow light... but I'll keep it to the must-haves for now :)
Is your potting mix still okay to use?
If you've just got yourself a fresh bag of potting mix, skip this section.
Before you literally dig in, keep in mind old potting mix might not be ok to use. You won't always find an official 'expiry date' or 'best before' stamped on the bag, but you should aim to store unopened potting mix no longer than about 6 months in ideal conditions.
Closed or opened, it's best to only buy what you need and to use up mixes with organic ingredients within 30 days. As long as it's kept dry, the many popular sterile rock and mineral substrates (perlite, pumice, leca, pon, vermiculite and similar), can be stored long-term and used as and when needed. They don't expire or 'go bad' unless your mix includes slow-release fertiliser or added nutrients, which may degrade and break down over time.
Ideal storage for potting mix usually means stored indoors in a sealed or an air-tight bag or container, somewhere cool and dry.
Step 1:
Prepare your plant for repotting - with a bath!
Ideally the 4 steps are as follows (however most people just do step 3 which is why health problems after potting up are so common).
- Prep your plant
- Prep your soil
- Repot
- Recovery
When should you prep plants before repotting?
Before repotting, make up some nutrient solution and give your plant a nutrient bath a day or two before you plan to repot. I try to time this with when the plant's due to be watered anyway.
You can make your own nutrient solution combo, but for my guys, I use a mix of fertiliser and a root booster.
Why give plants a nutrient bath before you repot?
As well as helping to loosen old potting mix attached to the roots, a nutrient bath also helps soften the roots and make them more flexible and less likely to break or be damaged during repotting.
The nutrients themselves also give plants a boost of essential nutrients, and help the roots recover better from the stress and shock of repotting.
What goes in the nutrient bath?
Lots of options here! A good combo is your usual fertiliser as a source of essential nutrients, plus some form of root health booster to support root recovery.
The product guide below gives you a few options that I've tried and recommend. This is what you'll use to make the nutrient solution ready for bath time.
How to give plants a nutrient bath before repotting
It's bath time! Mix your fertiliser with water. Add your choice of root booster (a few options below), and you've made your nutrient solution. Then give your plant a good soak! There are two popular methods:
The bath method is pretty much what it sounds like, and is really just a variation on bottom watering with nutrient solution. Keep your plant in its pot. Put your plant into a larger outer container.
Fill the outer container up with nutrient solution until the water's about 3/4 of the way up the inner pot. Leave the plant to soak for up to 60 minutes or until the top of the substrate is wet (I find 15 to 30 minutes is usually plenty, but if your substrate has low water retention - like bark - longer may be needed to make sure it's fully saturated right up to the top). Remove the plant and let it drain. Done!
Or option two is a top water drench. Thoroughly top water your plant with nutrient solution until the substrate is fully saturated (it may take a couple of pour throughs). Water heavily until water freely pours out the drainage holes, wait 5 minutes, then repeat again. Give the plant time to drain, and you're done.
What nutrients to use
There are a few options here so you may have what you need in your plant cupboard already...
One popular option is fertiliser + seaweed. Another is fertiliser + a root booster. You'll often see seaweed recommended for use before and after repotting because it's known to reduce transplant stress for plants. Seaweed is a common ingredient in root boosters also so check the label anf you may find your fertiliser or root booster already includes seaweed.
I've included a few popular options below with the goal of using what you already have rather than buying new. I'm a big fan of products being multi-purpose - and saving those pennies for more plants!
FERTILISERS
Since roots will be soaking in it for a while, if you go for the bottom water method for your nutrient bath, one option is a reduced-salt fertiliser (it's the mineral salts in fertiliser than can cause fertiliser burn, which can damage roots). Some fertilisers are lower salt than others.
One of my favourite fertilisers to reduce the risk of fertiliser burn is the Growth Technology (GT) Focus range. I use a higher dose than normal of 5mls per 1 litre to make up my repotting nutrient solution.
If you don't want to buy seaweed or a root product separately, Plant Runner Indoor Plant Food is fertiliser and seaweed all-in-one. I use Plant Runner at 1ml per 1 litre.
For my international plant buddies, as far as fertiliser goes, you can now get GT Foliage Focus from Amazon but I don't think Plant Runner's available outside of Australia and New Zealand just yet.
A third option, also from GT, also an all-in-one solution, is GT CCS. CCS is a complete fertiliser + root health and growth booster in one.
+ SEAWEED
For seaweed for my overseas readers, a friend who is a professional grower based in Florida recommends Bloom City Seaweed and Kelp Fertilizer but she did want me to pass on to ignore the dose on the bottle and dilute it to 0.5ml per gallon for potted plants (so a little goes a long way).
If you're based in New Zealand, my go-to seaweed fave is BioPower Organic Seaweed at 2 grams seaweed flake per 1 litre of water.
+ ROOT BOOSTER
If you have a normal fertiliser and just want something just to boost root health and recovery, have a look at Rootzone (also made by GT). I use it at just 1ml per 1 litre water and add Rootzone in with my fertiliser in the same water to make my nutrient solution.
Rootzone is a unique combo of seaweed extract and a whole lot of other root health and growth boosting ingredients, so you still want to add fertiliser, but Rootzone replaces the need to use seaweed.
Step 2:
Prepare your potting mix
Whatever combination of ingredients you buy or DIY for your potting mix, give it a good shake or mix up first. Multi-ingredient potting mixes (like Bioleaf), can settle in the bag when stored or during transport, with the fine stuff usually ending up at the bottom.
Pour out how much potting mix you'll need into a container, and give it a water or spray until lightly moist if it's on the dry side. Water helps 'stick' or bind together all those different ingredients, so once mixed you get an even distribution throughout the pot.
You also want to mix it well for better drainge so water flows through easily and doesn't 'sit' in the layers of different ingredients (creating a perched water table). Now pot up as you normally do...
Step 3:
Repot
For me, this part usually means sliding the plant out of its old pot, and gently removing the old substrate from around the roots. I gently loosen what I can with my hands first. If I want to remove every scrap of the old potting mix, I'll then wash the roots under a running tap.
Whatever method you use, avoid damaging or breaking any roots if you can. the reality is it's going to happen to some extent no matter how careful you are, so just go about it gently.
If you find the rootball is dense and compacted, maybe it became rootbound before you got around to repotting, you will likely need to loosen that root-ball up so the roots venture out into the new potting mix once repotted.
That soak you did a day or two earlier will have helped soften and loosen roots to make this whole part of the process much easier with less root damage caused.
Sometimes you just have to get rough with those roots, and may break off or damage a few roots in the process. That's where step 4 (recovery) comes in.
Step 4:
Recovery & plant rehab after repotting
It feels like all the hard work's done now - and to be fair, the physical stuff is done and dusted - but how well you care for your plants after repotting makes a big difference in how fast they recover and start growing again.
It can be quite normal for plants to temporarily stop growing after repotting, especially if you went up a lot bigger in pot size. What you want to try to avoid is any of the more serious repotting side-effects such as yellowing, wilting, leaf drop, root rot or even plant death. No thank you!
Right after repotting
Remember the new potting mix will be relatively dry straight after repotting. Give your newly potted plant a REALLY good drench or soak with the same nutrient solution you made up for step 1. You can either go for the bath method and bottom water, or thoroughly top water.
I prefer to give plants a bath (bottom water) as step one, a day or two before I repot, then I like to thoroughly top water drench after repotting, as top watering also helps flush out excess dirt and silt from the new substrate. Up to you.
For the month following repotting
You can just return to your usual water and fertiliser routine after repotting, provided your plant's recovering fine, but I like to keep giving those roots the VIP treatment to help the plant recover.
One option I love is GT CCS root fertiliser plus GT Rootzone (that's the one that includes seaweed too). I use that combo to temporarily replace my usual nutrient routine for the first month after repotting to help roots recover and get growing again.
Where to put plants after repotting
In warmer months (where it doesn't drop below 15 overnight), I simply return the plant to the same conditions it was in before repotting to minimise the amount of change it's dealing with.
And in cooler months it's onto my trusty heat mat to keep those roots cosy. I use the Inkbird brand of heat mats here in New Zealand. For my international plant friends, you can get a very good brand of heat mats called Vivosun.
One thing I'd avoid even for plants used it, is direct sun during recovery. Bright indirect light (or a grow light if needed), is normally ideal.
Congratulations!
Phew! That covered a lot. Well done for making it to the end. It does seems a lot at first, but becomes second nature after the first couple of times you follow this method. Plus I find it weirdly comforting giving my plants this much love, knowing I'm doing everything I can for them to come out the other end after repotting, happier and healthier than before.
At the end of the day, the key difference with this method is that nutrient bath 1 to 2 days before, then again after you repot, along with keeping warmth in mind for roots to recover.