Hello. I picked up this monstera over the weekend and am getting at repotting into a chunky mix. After looking at the roots I'm moving it from a 4” to a 6" clay pot. The soil is damp and dense. Do you have any suggestions on approaching these roots so I can loosen them up from the original soil with as minimal damage as possible?
by JnyBnz
5 Comments
Shake and spank. And a chopstick. 😄
Hose it if you have the access
I personally wouldn’t bother trying to loosen the roots. Might cause more damage to the root system than needed. I would just put the plant in position in the new pot and fill around with the new mix.
Soak it in a bucket of room temperature water. Hold the root ball under water and give it some squeezes to work the water in. Once it’s soaked you can slowly start to work the dirt out of the roots. You may have to dunk it and work the water into the root ball by squeezing a few times as you remove the dirt.
Change the water as it gets dirty and it will go faster.
Unless I’m concerned about root rot, I’m separating plants that were growing together in their pot, or I want to do a complete substrate change, I generally slip-pot my plants.
In my experience, slip-potted plants are much less likely to experience transplant shock or indications of stress from being repotted. On a couple of occasions, some of my deliciosa even pushed a new, healthy leaf within a week or so after being slip-potted.
Those roots look very healthy, suggesting adequate watering and my guess is that it probably gets great lighting too. Given the amount of roots your plant has, I’d recommend going up a few pot sizes, rather than following the typical “1-2 inches bigger than the rootball” recommendation. Based on the pic, I’d guess that it’s been in something like a 4 inch x 5 inch round pot. Tbh, I’d probably go for a 1 to 1.5 gallon pot (leaning 1.5 gal), as anything smaller would probably require another repotting/slip-potting in 3-4 months.