A few months ago I purchased some nice heucheras at Home Depot. A couple of them are in different beds, and a couple are in pots, so they're exposed to a variety of lighting conditions. They're all alive, but aren't getting any bigger! Are these slow-growing plants? Do they prefer certain soil? Am I watering too much/not enough? Help!!
Pitiful heucheras
You "might" be dealing w/ severely root-bound specimens - if they have been in the pots for too long, they might really need removing and unwrapping of roots.
On a larger scale -
In a gardening class this last year, we were shown slides which illustrated how important this is and how often gardeners fail to do anything more than just "plunk" plant from pot into the ground. Most incredible were the trees, some as old as 15 years, that eventually died (from self strangulation) - and when they were dug out of the ground, you could have put them back into the original pot, as the roots never moved out from the original zone. Those roots just kept going around and around in the pot determined pattern.
It is imperative, then, to be less than gentle with plants that have filled the pot with roots....depending on the plant and the toughness of their roots!!
Thanks for the tip. I usually try to be aware of this when I take plants out of pots, but sometimes I get in a hurry and am not very careful! I'll pull these up and take a look...
I was trying to recall any other problems I might have had w/ mine ....... they are so awesome today that I cannot even relate them to the 2 inch pots purchased some 5 years ago, or so. Maybe they are "slow" starters, and back then I didn't know what to expect, as I had never grown them before. I certainly didn't give them any special care - they are planted under a rather large fir tree - where water is not particularly abundant.