I was curious if any of you wash or shake most or all of the soil off that came with your plants in the container from the nursery, before you plant them in the ground. I used to just take the plant out of the container rough up the roots if necessary a bit and plop them in the ground with whatever soil mixture the nursery had planted them in the container with. Then a couple of years ago I read an article written by Tony Advent, the owner of Plant Delights. I thought what he said made sense and I had seen myself some of the consequences of just going from the container from the nursery to the hole I prepared for my plant. I had for one reason or another redug up some plants and noticed the root ball area was sometimes dry and well didn't look like what I thought a healthy space for the roots should look like compared to the immediate area around the root ball, the soil in the garden. Anyways I started doing it the other way, washing and shaking most if not all the packing soil off the plants before planting and I noticed that they seemed to perform better overall.....
Can I document all of this, of course not, but when you live with the plants for awhile you get a feel for when things are just peachy and when some plants are in first gear and just getting started and some are already in fourth gear and down the road.....You know what I mean.....I had this one drift of echinaceas a couple of years ago and a couple of the coneflowers I had planted were really far behind and I decided to dig'em up and see what was going on, maybe some root rot problems or whatever....When I dug'em up I didn't see any root rot or anything like that but again the area the original root balls were immediately in didn't look right to me....I washed the old packing soil off the root balls replanted them in the same holes without any new amendments and after sometime I noticed they looked better and were starting to catch up with their neighbors...after that and after reading Tony's article I never planted new plants the old usual way again....Do some plants just naturally grow faster and better than others even when they are the same cultivars, planted at the same time, and next to each other?....Of course.......But unless I'm mighty mistaken overall plants planted without any of their container soil seem to do better for me that those that are planted with it......Or all this is just auto suggestion from reading Tony's article years ago and I'm just an easily influenced gardener that believes whatever I read last.......:)
I'd sure like to hear what you think.....some of your experience with this if any.
Below is a link to Tony's original article.
http://www.plantdelights.com/Tony/planting.html
Paul from Alabama
How do you do it?
I had never read Tony's article, but I definitely belong to that same school of thought, particularly when it comes to trees and shrubs. Sometimes with annuals I'll just loosen up the roots a bit and plop them in the hole, but with things that are going to be in the garden a long time I always try and get off as much of the container soil as I can. I've been planting that way all along though so I can't really compare whether it actually works better, but it just made a lot more sense to me. I have clay soil, so if you plant things straight from the container they would have a tendency to become rootbound as the roots try to stay in the nice container soil rather than going out into the clay so I figured it was better to get them in the native soil.
Well ecrane you should've called me collect and told about this before I put my little younguns in an unnatural enviroment from the get go......:)
I had one area that was more clay-like than others and the plants there ALWAYS looked worse for wear, not because of the clay I don't think but because of what you said, them thinking hey I'm gonna stay in this nice container soil and before you know it you got root bound plants not from the nursery but after you got them home and planted them.....Not talking fire brick hard clay soil here but clay-ish soil.
Sorry...next time I'll call you! LOL I'm so glad to see Tony's article, I've always believed in doing things this way but I've always felt like the rest of the world feels differently, everyone else always seems to just tease the roots apart a bit and fill up the hole with amendments, so I always felt like the "black sheep" for thinking that wasn't the best way to do things. I don't even remember where I first read about it, I just remember when I read it, it really made sense to me. But it's nice to see someone with a good reputation and good credibility like Tony saying it to, makes me feel like I was right after all! LOL
ecrane......Thanks for your kind words about my good reputation and good credibility.....oh you meant Tony's, I'm so easily confused........:)
But no joke I felt the same way you did along the process of getting to what I think and practice now.
Paul from Alabama
Good thread topic, Paul!
I sort of arrived at planting this way too. I had the occasional plant that would die for no apparent reason, only to pull up a bound root ball as light as a feather. After joining DG and doing plant trades, I saw how well plants established that had had all the soil rinsed from the roots. Then I started using the jet spray on the hose to loosen the root balls on potted plants, especially woodies. I think this is why I've had such good luck with clearance items late in the season. For fall planted stuff, I think getting that fluffy media off the roots and ensuring good contact with native soil helps with winter survival too. I've lost fall planted things before I started planting this way and found what looked like cold damage to the roots, which I felt was from too much cold air surrounding them.
Neal
Good points Neal, especially your idea when dealing with clearance items, really necessary with them I'd think......OK, that's 3 for and......well it's 3 for anyways......:)
Paul from Alabama
Well Paul, even as a novice gardener I have to agree with you. I tend to really separate the root system as much as I can before I place the plant in the hole. In the process of doing that I lose a lot of the planting medium in which the plant is in. It is nice to know that I am "ok" doing this. My husband thinks I am being too drastic and am shocking the plants. I actually had to make a point of telling him that all of my plants for two years have done very well this way :) The only exception like ecrane said was the annuals. Their roots seem to be much more delicate and easily mangled when doing this.
cabriamo.....Have your husband's lawyers contact my lawyers and I think we can straighten this root thing out.......:)
and as far as the "novice" gardener thing goes.....and I know what you're trying to say but I'd like to share something with you that my old personal and if I might say here, closest friend, Thomas Jefferson told me once, he said, "Paul from Alabama, though an old man, I am but a young gardener"....cabriamo, alleged novice gardener, you heard it "from the man".....:)
Paul from Alabama
Great..... now I feel like I need to go dig everything jup and replant!!! LOL. It does make sense & I will try this form now on. I always play around with the roots a bit but have never gotten rid of the contqiner soil. I always thought they needed it to stay comfortable and not be too scared of their new home :)
I tend to rough up the roots (if necessary) and use the container soil when I plant, but I fill in around it with humus or compost instead of my garden soil. (The garden soil gets dumped back into my wheelbarrow and mixed in with the compost that's always in there. I try to keep a high ratio of compost to garden soil, though.) I don't know if this is any better than just plopping a plant in the ground...but it's what my gardening intuition led me to do. I figure I'm improving the soil as I plant.
Oh Oh, I just got 6 plants from Matt at Martindales ( Hibiscus) and I didn't do that. Do I need to repot them? Right now they are looking great with good blooms but they were expensive and I would hate to lose them. I just potted them last Friday. Any suggestions? Elaine
It sounds like you have them in containers? We were talking about planting things in the ground, not in containers. There's no need to shake off a ton of the container mix when you're just transferring them to another container since the container mix you put in the new container will be very similar to what it was already in. The only thing that was mentioned above that's helpful when doing container plants is if the plants were at all rootbound it helps to loosen up the roots a bit.
Thank you for your information. I should have read it more carefully. I will remember that the next time I put some plants in the ground. Elaine
Thanks Paul from AL! I wonder if that may explain why I have some mums that came back. I got them for something like 90% off and planted in mid-late October. I was really surprised that all 8 of them came back. I was told to not expect much. Not too shabby for less than a dollar a piece.
cabrlamo......Hey not too shabby at all......I'm getting more frugal in my golden years as it were......I've given up fast cars and fast women and spend my money now on fast growing plants.......:)
I tell my wife that all the time, joking with her of course, sometimes she laughs.....sometimes she don't......:)
Paul from Alabama
Well it made me laugh!
Hey then I'm glad I shared it then......You have a good morning
Paul from Alabama
Thanks, Paul, Neal, and all. Very helpful discussion. Had the evidence in front of me, didn't think it through all the way. Am about to head out to the perennial beds, really glad I read this first!
I enjoyed the feedback too amplified......I been practicing what I been reading about between showers yesterday and today.....Have a good one amplified...
Paul from Alabama
Well, PaulFromAL, I'm from IL, and I did plant those perennials in the manner suggested the other day ( as well as some annual salvia Rhea which work great for me given all the part shade I have but whose roots seemed to need this treatment). These and the tomato seedlings I planted are now being whipped by a strong NE wind off Lake Michigan--the air temp is 52, but I bet those plants are feeling that a scarf and maybe a pair of gloves might be nice. But their roots are undoubtedly much happier than they would have been had I not read this thread!
amplified....I am so proud of you....I'd give you a merit badge but instead I'm just going go put a tiny blue star next to your name on the bulletin board........:)
good luck with the plants and tell them from me to bundle up......:)
Paul from Alabama
Thanks, Paul, it'll match all the annual and perennial forget-me-nots in bloom around the yard.
No need to tell the plants to bundle up anymore--air temp has only risen one degree but the wind has died down so it feels like a normal cool day instead of late March--but I'll pass on the good luck wishes to them.
Thanks again to you and everyone who provided this helpful info.
Great idea! Paul
This explains why some of the things that I have lost have died ...I think.
I lost my red dragon persicaria over the winter and was so hurt that it did not come back... when I dug it up last week, it was just as described above.. roots all encircling that good container soil and very little out into the native soil.. even though I cut the root ball on all 4 sides with a sharp knife and roughed up the roots when I planted... as one is supposedly "supposed" to. I will try cleaning those roots off before I plant next time and see if I get some improvement..........besides if Tony said to do it......it is probably best!!!
Thanks for bringing this up!!
Sharon
amplfied.....If that works out for you and I surely hope it does, then you can pass your experience on the next person who might could benefit from you sucess....and then..well you get me drift.....:)
Sharon, to use another analogy with your experience with the Red Dragon persicaria and what you found when you dug it up and how you "thought" you planted it the right way....Let me share this with you right now..One time I was riding down the road with my wife and the car sputtered and coughed right to a dead stop.....I looked at my wife, she looked at me, she asked me if I had put gas in the car like she told me to, I looked at her dead in the eye, sneered my best sneer and told her this..."Honey, I'll be right back, I have to walk back down the road to the filling station to get some gas"....Well that's not really an analogy about what happened to your Red Dragon's but that was the last time I ever forgot to put gas in the car......:)
Paul from Alabama
savagegardener - Yes, I noticed the same thing with my few didn't-come-back plants (lavender, an aster, and a mum). All of them were as Paul described--root bound to the clump of potting soil. When I removed them I didn't even have to dig; they pulled right up out of the soil as if they'd never really rooted there at all. That might also explain why the aster and mum were such water hogs after I planted them, too.
I'm going to use the wash-off-the-roots technique from now on. Hopefully the stuff I planted this year will fare better, though. This year I dug large planting holes and surrounded the new plant with a blend of native soil, compost, and a bit of organic fertilizer. We'll see how it goes!