Module 3 · Soil & pots — roots need air too
Your field work
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Your field work · About 30 minutes for one plant
Repot one plant into an airy mix — no gravel
The fastest way to trust the no-gravel rule is to do a repot the right way and see the roots you have been suffocating.
- 1.Pick a plant that is showing rootbound signs (roots out the hole, dries too fast, or is clearly cramped).
- 2.Get a pot one size up with a drainage hole and a bag of free-draining mix (stir in extra perlite).
- 3.Slide the plant out, look at the roots, and gently loosen any that circle the root ball.
- 4.Pot it up with mix top to bottom — deliberately no gravel layer — at the same depth it grew before.
- 5.Water thoroughly until it runs out the hole, empty the saucer, and note the date so you can watch it recover.
Done looks like: The plant sits in fresh airy mix in a right-sized pot with a working drainage hole and not a single stone at the bottom.