You really have to knock a plant out of its pot to see if it requires a new home. By doing this you can easily tell if a plant needs potting on. If its pot is filled with a mass of roots, or even if the roots are not so thick but evenly spread over the surface of the root-ball, then the plant needs a new home. You have to inspect plants very carefully, of course, because the root-ball may not be showing a mass of roots, and if you are too rough it will disintegrate and you’ll have to pot it all over again. Probably the safest way is to invert the plant in its pot, and then gently knock the pot on the edge of the potting bench with your hand spread over the surface of the pot as much as you can to prevent it falling out. If you judge that the plant needs a new home then you have to decide what kind of a home it is to have.
Nowadays the most common plant pots are made of plastic. Clay pots are not always ready to buy, and in any case are more expensive. To the private gardener this is important. If you drop an armful of plastic pots all they do is bounce. If you drop an armful of clay pots you end up with a lot of useless broken pots, which is why most plants are sold to you in plastic pots because nurserymen also drop pots.
The problem is that growing in plastic pots results in a dilemma, mainly due to the fact that most private gardeners find it difficult to judge the amount of water to give their plants.
Do they need watering? How much water to give them? How often? Also difficult to judge is the size of the next pot. Almost always you will have to use a larger pot, but how large? A rough guide is to use one that is slightly larger. I suppose the easiest way is to place the pot which needs a new home into a larger pot to see if it ‘fits.’ The new ‘home’ must not be very much larger than the old one. Just enough to allow you to trickle a small amount of compost around the side of the plant being potted on. Enough compost to give it enough food to continue growing. The last thing you want to do is to bury the plant in new compost which will stop it growing at once for some time. Take care of the drainage by putting pieces of broken clay pot on the base, and follow this with a small amount of compost to raise the new plant to the right level. Then you must feed new compost around the root-ball, firming it with the fingers as you go on. Fingers are the most sensitive so don’t use your thumbs. As you proceed with the filling, gently tap the pot on the potting bench to help settle the compost round the plant. When you have filled the pot to the right level tap it again. Do this two or three times and this should be sufficient. After this is finished, water the plant to settle the plant into its new home. Use a rose on the end of the watering can, or just as good, stand the pot in water until the water has risen to soak the compost.
This a relatively simple procedure and should cause you little worry. Enjoy your gardens and may your God go with you wherever you are in Guyana, and care for you.
