Our Complete Guide to Repotting: everything you need to know! 🪴

As we outgrow our clothes, plants outgrow their pots. An often-overlooked step of plant care is repotting. Along with the fundamentals of looking after a plant, such as watering and light, repotting is a crucial component to keeping your beloved plants at their happiest and healthiest.

Here at Plants and Papers, we offer a stress-free repotting service at a small fee (mostly to cover specialist soil). So, feel free to pop in with your plant and we can discuss prices, aftercare and eliminate any anxieties. From there you can leave it in our trusted hands, and we’ll give you a bell when it’s ready to be collected.

Customer perk: if your plant is from us, we offer 10% off repotting costs! 

However, if you’d prefer to get your own hands dirty, we have put together a thorough guide to ensure that it’s not a chore you need to be fearful of.

Our Ficus elastica, the target of our repotting today.

Why do I need to repot?

Put simply, a plant that has outgrown its pot will remain unhappy. As your plant and its roots increases in size, more nutrients and water are required to allow it to flourish. If this is restricted, your plant is at risk of stunted growth and the plants roots will become what we call ‘rootbound’, meaning they have no space to grow any further. Compost also degrades over time, with the nutrients, air space and water retention being depleted. Your plant will be very grateful for some new components. It’s also a great opportunity to see what’s going on down there. We spend most of our time checking for healthy leaves or flowers, so it’s a good chance to delve a bit deeper. Are there any signs of pests, root rot or disease? It’s integral to the plant’s health that these are kept in check.

When is best to repot?

Generally, early spring is a safe time to repot your plants. And as a rough rule, even if your plant hasn’t outgrown its pot, it will need a compost refresh at least every 1-2 years (plant and size dependent).

Most plants are pretty good at telling you when they have outgrown their pot. Some key signs to look out for are multiple roots sticking out of the top of the soil or bottom of the pot, roots constricted in a circle around the pot, a lack of growth in your plant, new growth that isn’t thriving for long, or the soil drying out very quickly.

An example of a rootbound Monstera.

There are, however, some outliers to these guidelines. For example, monsteras enjoy being somewhat rootbound (they can compensate with aerial roots), the bigger more tough varieties of plants (such as a large yucca) may also be completely fine with a repot in the winter. It’s completely dependent on your plant and it’s conditions. But, luckily for you, we are always at hand if you have any doubts.

Soil composition

Now to get to the nitty gritty.

Houseplant compost may sound complicated – if you’re looking to repot one or two plants, you may be overwhelmed with the amount of ingredients you need to purchase. In store and online, we offer our own specialist mix with all the key ingredients for happy houseplants. This can be purchased by the kilo bag or if you bring in your own container, we will be happy to fill this for you at a slightly reduced price. 

Buy Rainforest Soil

Buy Desert Soil

If you are looking to make this up yourself, unfortunately your bog-standard multipurpose compost won’t cut it, and the components will vary from rainforest to desert plant.

For rainforest plants, we recommend coco coir, perlite, peat-free compost and activated charcoal. Desert plants require a lot more drainage, so an extra substrate is required. We’d recommend horticultural sand. Plants such as monsteras and philodendrons will also benefit from the addition of worm castings for some extra nutrients.

Activated charcoal isn’t a must, if you’re struggling to get your hands on it. It is an optional bonus for your soil mix as it provides extra nutrients. 

Pot sizes and types

Firstly, you’ll need to measure the current nursery pot size of your plant. From here, we greatly recommend only sizing up by 4-5cm maximum. Too big of an increase in pot size won’t help your plant grow quicker, it will only stress it out and cause the plant to focus its energy on growing roots to fill the pot, instead of new leaves. Some outliers to this are monsteras, spider plants and peace lilies, but again, not tooooo big. Always make sure your next pot has plenty of drainage holes, we always recommend sticking to nursery pots and placing those in decorative pots for a nice finishing touch.

Pot size increase. Original pot is 27cm (left), the new pot is 32cm (right).

Technique

Your first step is to remove your plant from its current pot. To do this, turn the plant and pot sideways, hold the stems/leaves gently and tap the base of the pot and manoeuvre it until the plant comes out. Now, you can loosen the plant’s roots, massage off any excess soil and get a general feel and look at your plant’s overall health. Unbind any root bound roots and give any excess threadlike roots a little prune.

Top tip: the drier your plant is, the easier this will be. We’d advise repotting when your plant is due for its next drink! 

Roots exposed after removing from its old soil. At this point, give it a good survey and check it's ready for its new home. Excess, threadlike roots can be trimmed if necessary.

Now for the new soil. Pour a layer of your fresh potting mix in to your new pot, give this a tap and a little firming down to remove any excess air pockets.

A base layer of fresh soil.

Set your plant in the centre of the pot on top of this new layer and add potting mix around the plant until it is secure. You can also use some of the plant’s old soil at this stage (assuming it’s healthy, and not too much as your plant has probably used up most of the nutrients). Be sure not to be too firm with packing this soil in as you want to give your roots some space to breathe.

Packing up the sides of the pot with our specialist rainforest mix.

Finally, give your plant some water and let it thrive in its new soil!

Aftercare

Now that your plant has a bigger pot and new soil, it may have different needs. Your plant may need an extra day or two added to its usual watering routine due to its new pot. Our advice is to be vigilant for the first month or so with checking the soil’s moisture levels. During this time, some leaves may start to look a bit sad and need some chopping, don’t let this worry you as it’s completely normal during the readjustment period. After this, it’ll be settled, and you can adapt to its new needs and look forward to healthy new growth!

Our Ficus elastica, happy in its new pot.