Overheard recently in my plant shop: two ladies talking about the products. One picked up a pot and turned to her friend and said, “It’s very Instagram chic to have a pot like this.” Instagram-chic?
And herein lies the main issue with houseplant culture—people are more focused on the appearance of their plants and creating “chic” images than they are on owning and caring for the plants themselves. This is the first of a series of posts on how social media culture is driving many common houseplant abuses.
First up: Frequent—and unnecessary—repotting
Odds are any Plant Tuber (yes, that is a term now, too) you bring up on YouTube will have their channels flooded with repotting videos. Repotting has become the plant culture’s fireside chat. These videos are often more about personal anecdotes and drama rather than actual repotting and they’re full of inaccurate information.
There are many issues with these videos, but perhaps the most glaring is that they lead people to believe that repotting is necessary, when in fact it rarely is. The most common plant problem I see come through my doors is superfluous and inappropriate repotting. Plants are often potted up in pots several sizes too big, in inappropriate soil, and in pots without drainage.
Many of these Plant Tubers & Grammers flash photos and videos of what they call “root porn” which often shows, you guessed it, roots. What they insinuate with these images is that if one sees roots then it must need to be repotted. Or if there’s roots coming out of the bottom of the pot (image at top), then it must need to be repotted, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Roots seek moisture. Where’s moisture? At the bottom. Because: gravity.
Repotting houseplants often causes stress to the plant. One is changing an environment where they have been comfortably growing for some time to a new environment. Many houseplants have small root systems and don’t need a lot of room. People often think if they give their plants more space, they’ll grow bigger. Or they think if humans don’t like to be in crowded spaces, surely plants don’t either. But that’s exactly how plants live in jungles. They like to be crowded.
Most plants are perfectly happy living in the same pots for years on end. All they need is maybe a little topping of worm castings or some fertilizer to give them a little boost in the active growing season. Plants also tend to do better a little bit rootbound than otherwise, often producing flowers (spathiphyllum, anthurium, and hoya are good examples here) and better foliage.
Plants would much rather be left alone. More plants have been killed by helicopter-plant-parenting than they have by neglect.
Next topic: Leca and other “hip” potting mediums
I knew we had reached a new low when “plant parent” was taken seriously.
Thank you! As a horticultural professional, I am constantly being asked to repot plants for people or if they should repot. Almost always the answer is “no”, especially if the plant is already under stress. My old boss used to say repotting is the Kiss of Death. And he was right!
You are welcome! And happy to hear that you had similar experiences!
Thank you so much for this! I’ve been a gardener and houseplant lover my whole life (I’m 70.) Though I don’t watch these types of videos, I have somehow picked up the “rule” that I must repot after a couple years and make sure the plant has fresh soil. Picking a bigger pot, of course, so there’s plenty of fresh soil. Then I reach tip over with large pots in a small house and have to find new homes. So needed this heads up about houseplant health.
You are very welcome! It depends on the plant, but most don’t need to be repotted every 2yrs! Many can live in the same pot for decades.
I’ve had a couple of trailers for about 20 years (peperomia and rosemary) that become all roots with little soil every few years, and like Mary Jo above, I couldn’t keep accommodating larger and larger pots, so when they start to show signs of languishing I “bonsai” them, cutting off the bottom third of the root mass and filling the bottom of the pot with fresh soil. It sounds awful, but the plants seem to like it, putting out new healthy growth afterwards, and they stay in the same pots.
Very smart!
I think that people may feel that potting up a plant is a way of ‘owning’ it – making it theirs. Makes it feel less like an ornament. And I must admit I have often done just that, if I haven’t planted it straight away.
Which tells all – I am usually dealing with garden plants. This post makes me wonder if house plants are characteristically different, perhaps chosen for their role because they are happy in a (rather confined) pot?
Hi Anne! That is a very interesting observation and I think you do have a good point there – that people do feel like they own it and make it theirs immediately by repotting. There’s also several other common misconceptions about the need to repot as soon as they get it – like thinking soil that plants come in is inferior. Which isn’t necessarily true. Many of these growers have spent years developing their soil for their plants. Their goal is to get plants growing as quickly and as large as possible for selling – so if anything, the soil is superior.
And I initially got my start with plants via farming, coming from a multigenerational farming family, then I moved onto gardening, followed by houseplants. There absolutely is a difference keeping a plant in a pot vs in the ground. I like to think that everything we do to ground plants is magnified with houseplants. You’re forcing a plant to live in a micro-environment of its pot vs the jungle or vs the garden. Every little thing you do to a houseplant matters.
That last sentence is so true. I remember being almost bewildered when I first had a garden where plants seemed able to cope all by themselves.