Root Mass Matters when Repotting Houseplants (Part 2)

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In today’s video, we are stopping back in with Marco. He is part of a revival series, and we had repotted him on July 31. Right now, it is the very beginning of September, so we’re talking about a little bit more than a month for him. When you look at the other video in this series, you’re going to see a lot of growth here. You see new stalks, which is a really good indicator that he’s doing well— all the new growth.

So, after you do a repotting, when you start to see new growth, that means the plant has established in the pot and is doing well. Here’s another frond that’s coming in too. You also see these greening up considerably because prior, he was pretty nutrient deficient. As mentioned, the parlor palms and palms in general do suck up a lot of nutrients.

Now, when I put him in this pot, you might have thought this is too small of a pot. However, you’ll see that he’s really responding well to this pot. He is a fast grower, so he will be getting potted up probably in a couple more months. Yes, it does take a little extra time to repot the plants on a regular basis, but that is the only way to avoid root rot. As I’ve mentioned many times, if I had put him in double the size of this pot, thinking I was giving him a lot of room to grow, he probably wouldn’t have grown that much and may have succumbed to root rot. That’s why he’s doing well because he’s in the right size pot.

When I put him in this pot, it was a two-thirds plant to one-third pot ratio. He’s starting to outgrow that ratio, as you can see, but I will wait until he definitely outgrows the ratio before I repot him into a slightly bigger pot. You keep doing this—putting them into pots that are a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger—and you’re going to have a really healthy, strong, vibrant plant. Prior to this, he hadn’t been potted in a long time, so he really needed it, and now he’s doing really well.

I am, however, not going to be repotting him yet. As mentioned, I am going to give him some nutrients because, as mentioned, plants, especially palms, soak up nutrients. I’m going to be using some of my Green Gourmet House Plant Food, which I will put the link for below; it’s on my website.

I am going to insert the fertilizer, as I recommend, into potted plants with a wooden dowel. Actually, all of my fertilizers come with one of these wooden dowels. So, what you want to do is make a hole in the plant every two inches or so, depending on the size of the pot. If it’s a big pot, you go every two to three inches; if it’s a smaller pot, you want to go every one to two inches.

You make a hole, take a little bit of the fertilizer, sprinkle it in, and you want to go by packaged records as to how much you’re doing overall, so you’ve got to be careful with that. I pretty much know that by just looking now, but when you’re starting out, be careful. I’m putting in each hole about a half a teaspoon, even a quarter teaspoon.

When you put it in that hole, it goes down to the root zone where you really need it. I’m going to do this only three times in him for this size pot, so another half teaspoon or so, maybe a little bit less than that, and putting it in here. Then you cover it back up. The wooden dowel works really well because this gets the fertilizer, as mentioned, to the root zone.

A lot of package directions will tell you to sprinkle it on the top, and it’ll get down below eventually after watering if you do, but if it doesn’t go over the top when you’re watering, it might go down the drain or into a saucer. Even if it does, it takes a long time to get down there. My fertilizer also has mycorrhizae, which needs to be at the root zone in order to activate.

I have another video on that. It’s a microscopic fungus that attaches to plant roots in exchange for bringing the plant more water and nutrients than it would on its own. So basically, it makes the root system a lot stronger, and you want to get that down at the root zone too.

Okay, so I had watered Marco prior, and you also want to water before fertilizing your plant. You want to water prior and then you want to water afterward too to activate the fertilizer. I also have here some worm compost, vermicompost, and I am going to do a few holes of that as well in different places than I did the other. The worm castings are a very low source of nutrients, so it’s hard to overdo them.

You can overdo anything, but you can put a fairly generous amount into your soil. I do have a video about that. So into your soil, when you’re repotting, also use it as a mulch. I’m putting a little bit of that in him too, so that’s going to give him that extra micronutrients, macronutrients, and natural growth hormone, which is also in my Green Gourmet fertilizer.

Okay, now we are going to water him. You want to water slowly so it can sink in; it doesn’t flow over the top. You want to water until it’s very well hydrated. The first time I watered him a little while ago, prior to this, I waited until the water came out the bottom of the pot. You don’t necessarily have to do that again on the second watering unless you want to, but more you just want to make sure it’s nice and soaked so that the fertilizer can get wet and become activated and the plant will start taking up the nutrients.

Keeping in mind too that when you fertilize, it takes a plant a week to two weeks before it will take up the fertilizer when it’s taken up via soil. There’s a difference between roots growing in water and roots growing in soil. Soil roots go through an extra process before they absorb nutrients, so don’t expect if you fertilize your plant the next day that it’s going to be reacting. It takes a little bit of time, so just have to have patience. Just talk to the plant, sing to the plant, do other things rather than worry about if the fertilizer is working.

Okay, so there is that. Marco’s doing well. Probably there’s a little bit of water coming out of the pot. I wouldn’t want to put too much water going out of the pot right now because I did just fertilize him. You don’t want to wash the nutrients through. You can also use liquid fertilizers; those work well as well.

So we will check back in again with him in a month, probably in a couple of months. At that point, I will be repotting him, so you can see the next stage in the repotting of a revival like this. Say hi to him again!

That is that. Thank you for stopping by today! Please leave any comments about any indoor gardening tutorials you’d like to see. Remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share this video, and please check the bell if you’d like to be notified when we release new videos.

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