Quote Originally Posted by cakedaddy View Post
Woohoo Connie! You should come out this way when you finish up Bruce's stuff. You could maybe teach me to be a bit more ruthless with my repotting! I come close to needing a Xanax when I repot.
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LOL...well see I used to be that way. Then I began realizing that even when I took my time I often ended up with the same amount of broken roots. Now if I see almost no good roots, I just whack the entire rotted root ball off and save myself tons of time. I just make sure and use a nice rooting soak before I get started. I sit the pot into water up to the top of the potting mix and go do something else for about ten to twenty minutes. That way, even if I cut a ton of roots off, the plant has has time to ingest the rooting hormone and will shoot out roots in no time anyways. I'm also known to beat the plants root ball against the trash can to allow loose material to shake out....saving me a ton of time picking out the loose stuff. There are certain plants that I think do better when you get rid of the old roots. I don't know about everyone else, but I have too many plants to be slowly picking stuff off the roots. lol I also find filling a jug with water and waving the roots back and forth will help remove loose materials as well. When I remove a large section of wood I clean off the top of the water in the jug and wave the roots around again. It is a real time saver.