GardenJunkie said:I am new to taking care of indoor plants... ive been going to Lowes weekly with my boy friend and saving the clearance plants that's are not looking too hot... I'm just not sure when the plants need to be potted up? any tips?
Welcome to ATP, GardenJunkie! Nice screen name.
Keep listening for
experienced advice about potting up. My main thoughts are that if the plant is doing well, growing and putting out new leaves, it probably doesn't need re-potting.
If it "goes downhill", or looks sickly, maybe it does.
The best clue will be tilting the container and trying to ease the root ball out of the pot. (Don't pull on the plant stem! Push from the bottom hole with the pot horizontal or tipping down a little.)
If it comes out whole, and you see more white roots than dark soilless mix, especially if the roots are circling the pot - the plant is circling the drain and in trouble. Re-pot.
What I don't know is how experienced indoor gardeners check their big pots when they are NOT root-bound yet. if my experience with little tiny propagation cells is a guide, pushing the "root ball" out of a container before it is rootbound means that you kind of tear the root ball apart and wind up with soil everywhere, and then have to stuff the roots back into the pot after mangling them.
There is a difference between just "potting up" and "re-potting". Dropping the old root ball into a somewhat bigger pot is just "potting up". It doesn't cure circling roots or over-age roots that have gotten ropy and thick.
If a root ball is really dense, it probably needs some root pruning. Cut off the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of the root ball! Untangle and unwind as much of the old, circling roots as you can. Thick roots are just anchors: nutrients and water are only absorbed by root hairs on fairly new roots. You have to cut away the big old roots for small new ones to grow back.
And while re-potting, knock away as much of the old soilless mix as you can, and gently wash away most of the rest. Re-pot into NEW soilless mix. Mixes for containers actually need to be coarse and fast-draining. Some big-box-stores sell "potting soil" that is NOT well suited to growing in pots! It's suited to making a high profit margin for the store and the vendor with a bag of ill-suited but cheap material. If you kill your current plants, and have to buy more, the store thinks they made a new customer.
What you need most in pots is a mix that will let enough air reach the roots to keep them from drowning. It has to let enough water OUT of its pores and channels that those channels open up to air. THEN oxygen can diffuse in the pot and CO2 can diffuse out. Without oxygen, the roots die, root hairs first.