i used to stick my finger into the soil to see how wet the soil is in the pot. but i stopped doing that since i know how much water it needs now. then yesterday, i saw something that looks like white molds in the soil and decided to see what is it. the soil was hard as rock and roots were everywhere. it was coming up to the top of the pot. the white stuff looks like clumps of perlite thing stuck on the root of the plant. so i went to homedepot and got my usual mix to up-pot the plants.

question is, i never done this before. i was just going to take the plant out of the pot with soil and all, and just move it in the new pot with more soil. is that what i need to do? or do i need to do something to root before putting the tree in the new pot?

they are in i think 4G pot. they will be going into 10G tub.

pete

In general, If my plants are totally rootbound I like to rake at the sides of the root ball to break the roots up (detangle) a bit before repotting. Some folks will take a gardening claw (hand rake thingy) to do the job. Just know this will affect some roots so a day or two of shade to recover is advised. If you don't do it, when those roots beef up they may choke themselves out. You want those roots to continue outward and onward, not inward towards themselves.

I would do what Jason says. But I would also take a 3 inch nail or something like that a poke holes in the top of the soil and move around to aerate internally. Loosen that up as well.

As I experience more and more, I believe that trees should be moved before they get to that point. I tried an experiment this year. I put a 3 gallon LSU Gold in a 10 gallon pot. It is growing just as well as those that I potted up 1 or 2 sizes.

Some believe in root bound and some believe in letting it have space.

I am in Dom's camp.  If you want a larger tree, you should make sure it has plenty of room to spread its "legs" out.  Don't let it get overly rootbound to the point that it's choking itself out.  Some say this is a great way to force fruiting, but it's just generally unhealthy for many plants. 

Plants [supposedly] will try to maintain a proper above-ground-to-below-ground ratio of growth, so I've always subscribed to the theory that if you let a tree produce more roots, it's going to try to increase the above-ground growth to match that.

I WOULD NOT apply this logic to cuttings - I can just see someone reading that last paragraph, then going to stick a cutting into a 25-gallon pot, thinking it will produce tons of top growth in a few weeks.  The whole purpose for me to use tiny cups and bags is so I can monitor the root development of my stick and know when to transfer into a pot.

For me, a plant that is ready to up-pot should slide out of its container fairly easily, and this is what I feel it should look like when it is "close to perfectly ready" (photo courtesy of JD):

i'll probably do complete repot during coming spring. i'll just pull the plant and soil out of old pot, loosen up the roots a little and put in in big pot with more soil mix.

would the cause figs to drop?

pete

I've never experienced that with any of my trees.  I suppose it may happen with some varieties, but in general .... doubt it.

If you're concerned, give your trees three or four days in the shade before putting back out in the sun, or do the repot when you're going to have a couple of overcast/rainy days.

i found that i had to water the trees everyday to keep it looking happy. so today i pulled them out and noticed that it has white roots coming out, but the center of the root mass didn't have any moisture. so i untangle the root and repotted all the trees. only thing is now the plants look really unhappy. top of the branches are all drooping and looks very wilted. hope i'm not killing them.

i put more holes on the bottom of the tub and put wick in the thing to get the water draining better.

pete

If you haven't already done so, I'd quickly get them into the shade and some extra humidity for a few days till they're back to normal.

they are under shade, and i have been watering them once in the morning and again when it gets hot in the afternoon. i haven't fertilized them. would fertilizer help?

pete

I'm no expert, but from what others have written I think you'd be better off waiting until they've recovered from the transplant shock before fertilizing them. Misting them frequently would probably be beneficial.

I would disagree with what's been said so far.  If the root/soil in the container is so compact that you can't stick your finger into it (hard as a rock, as you put it), I would wait until the fall or spring while the tree is dormant and do a bare-rooted re-pot of the tree.  The problem with growing in containers is you have limited volume of space for the roots to grow into.  As the roots grow beyond the space allowed, the growing mix compacts (this is why it is so hard) and begins to constrict the roots and chokes off nutrients to the top of the plant.  If you only pot up, the core of your growing mix will not only remain constricted but become more so.  Eventually the tree will die.  Most likely, at this point, most of the water that is going into the container is running down the sides and out of the bottom of the containers.

Potting up the tree now (even with raking or cutting the outside roots) will not ease the constriction.  Poking nails (or anything else that is solid) into the growing mix will further compact the growing mix/roots.

If you are looking for something you can do to help now.  I would take a 3/4-1" (depending on how big your container is) copper pipe, cut a diagonal into one end so you have a sharp tip, then cut plugs out of your root zone.  After you take the plugs out, fill the hole with some of your growing mix and water.  Take one or two plugs out at a time, wait a week or two, then take one or two more.  Leave the tree out of direct sunlight...remember, it's ability to take up water is limited.  Then bare-root in the off season.

~james

i more or less bare root the trees today. believe it or not, the trees are coming back once the temp has dropped a little. i'll baby the trees for a week or so and see if the will take direct sun. when i pull the trees out today, they had about inch of new white root all over. it's been only two days since i pot up.

pete

so it's not dead yet. it's been raining some last few days so it looked rather nice. but yesterday during the day time, the temp here went to 100 degree and all three trees even under the shade looked like it was getting wilted really bad. the soil is nice and moist, and it drains nice.

i watered it, and it rained again last night. this morning the trees just looked amazingly good. but, i think it's going to wilt as soon as heat comes back.

how long does it take for trees to adjust to repotting? it's been 4 days today. i hate to keep the trees in the shade too long. maybe i'll give it light fertilizer this weekend.

pete

James,

I enjoyed reading your suggestions.......they make lots of sense.

Pete, good luck with your efforts.


Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Pete, since you've already done a bare-root re-pot (post #12), I'd just keep on with the shade and water, and mist the leaves frequently if you have the opportunity. Even my young trees planted in-ground earlier in the year, and in filtered shade, are showing some drooping leaves in the hottest part of the day, so it's not surprising that a recently re-potted fig would droop as well in 100 degree temperatures. As long as the leaves are returning to normal when it cools down, you're okay.

ken,

thanks for the suggestion. i did "wet toe" to all trees up to the repotting. i was thinking after the repotting, i wouldn't need it. but i'm sure i'm wrong. i'll try that and see what happens.

pete

I think it really helps. In Tucson's arid heat the trays go bone dry within a 24-hour period. I haven't done any truly scientific testing yet, but I did measure how much water it took to refill one basin, and it took 2/3 gallon. I'm sure a fair amount was lost to evaporation, but expect most of it was transpired by the fig tree. There's no way the potting soil alone could make that much water available to the plant.

Atreano is one fast growing and spreading tree and the fruit is totally awesome!  I repotted a 1 gallon Atreano 2 months ago to a 5 gallon container.  Would you believe it if I told you it is time to repot that dude again?  I wouldn't mind if my whole orchard had only Atreano fig trees!  Atreano figs are just that good!  Whenever I transplant a tree, I loosen the root ball with my fingers or a spoon.  Then I soak the roots in Ferilome liquid feed for cuttings for about 30 minutes.  Then I keep the tree in the shade for about a week.  The results is like magic and I've never lost a tree yet using this method.

this morning, i got up early and water the trees before going to work. when i got back home trees looked much better. still little wilted, but not as bad as yesterday. today's temp is around 95 degrees. i'll try watering every morning till they do not show too much stress.

pete

after 5 days, now the trees are looking much better. however, i do need to water every morning to make it look this way. i also give little more water during the hottest part of the day.







they are right after i misted them.

i'm going to get them out to full sun starting tomorrow to see if the can take it.

pete

if they are wilting in the afternoon without a "touch up" I expect they will not handle full sun very well.

good job so far.

Jason,

you were right. it was 74 degrees this morning. i set the trees in south wall of my house,and went to some places with family. when we came back, it was 4 hrs later, and 88 degrees. i moved the trees back under the shade and gave them water. the were back to normal with in an hr.

so, i placed them on north wall with "wet toes". will see what happens tomorrow.

north side gets morning, and evening sun. it's almost all shade between 2 and 4.

pete

I had the same issue.  I repotted six trees today.  I left them out in part sun for 10 minutes and they looked half dead.  Put them in the sahde, they've perked up.  They'll stay in the shade for the next week....

I wanted to revive this topic. I know its probably a bit late to maybe do anything about this now. I picked up another tree a while ago from someon I bought my first two trees from last year. He explained to me basically the opposite