Should I repot this?

[wildedges]

This plant has been in this pot for quite a few years now, I forget how many but at least 6. It seems healthy enough for now but it's a fairly small pot and it must be more root than soil at this stage. I feed it monthly in the summer and it doesn't get watered that often. With the narrow neck of the pot there's probably no way I'll get the plant out without smashing it and I quite like the pot. Do I grab the hammer for the sake of the plant or try and top-dress it with fresh soil and hope it can live on with liquid feeds and fresh air?

[fatich]

I would repot it in a bigger and wider pot for a better growing.

[rodsmith]

I've had a couple of pots of the same shape as yours and they are a real problem when trying to remove a plant for repotting. I've generally manged to get the plant out in the end but with some root damage. Your plant does look a bit big for the pot so could probably do with an upgrade. It is tricky and I can understand that you would like to keep the pot. Probably best to have a try at removing the plant after watering as the rootball should be a bit more malleable then. Good luck and let us know the result.

[Paul in Essex]

Alternatively you could consider getting in with a sharp kitchen knife and cutting downwards from the rim of the pot so that it just slips out of the pot leaving the edges behind. It looks like an Aloe ferox or similar so disturbing the roots in this way wouldn't do it any long term harm - just leave it in the new pot unwatered to start with until the cut roots heal and new roots are formed. I have carried out this surgery in the past on an Aloe arborescens that I planted into a similarly shaped pot. We generally only do it once, though!

Funny, isn't it, that this must be the most popular shaped pot produced yet the most impractical to live with.

[wildedges]

Well it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'd given it a good water yesterday so thought I'd have a crack at repotting it today while the soil might still be a bit wet. There was a nice wide crock in the base so I had something solid to push against and the soil was actually quite friable so it wiggled free fairly easily.



Filling the new pot up around the loose roots was harder though and I had to rig up a pipe and plastic bottle funnel to get the soil in neatly.



And while I was in the mood for getting scratched and scraped I also gave this guy a long overdue repot. I don't know if it will straighten out though but it's starting to outgrow the house sadly.



Thanks for the help everyone

[rodsmith]