I have 2 plants in soil roughly 5 months old but arent as tall as you'd expect and arent very bushy due to newbie mistakes and poor environmental conditions (which have been sorted). They are 2 weeks into flowering and i am seeing very little happening, and it is my feeling that the containers they are in are too small thus stunting its growth. So this weekend i plan to re-pot them. The soil was given to us with the plants and i have no idea what kind of soil it is. The plants look healthy but the plant in the smaller pot is always drooping and is significantly smaller than the plant in the larger pot. 1) Is it a bad idea to be re-potting 2 weeks into 12/12? 2) Should i keep the existing soil and just add more to fill the bigger pot, or should i completely get rid of all the soil and replant using a completely fresh lot? 3) If i completely ditch the existing soil, how exactly do i do that without fucking the roots up? I think its pretty tightly packed in there. Also, when i re-pot it, do i need to manually distribute the roots out around the soil as much as possible or do i just place the mass of roots into the soil and let nature take its course? 4) What kind of soil should i use? I understand that this is an extremely broad question but i really dont have any idea what to use. All i know is to stay away from the shit with slow release nutrients. 5) Is there such thing as too much soil/too bigger pot? Cheers guys.
1) - 2) I'd recommend carefully cutting off the bottom of the small pot(with a hand saw) and placing it into the larger pot. I've never done this but from what I've read it's the only completely stress-free way to re-pot and seems way easier than removing the root ball. 3) I wouldn't worry about getting rid of all the existing dirt. It'll be nearly impossible to remove it all from the root ball. It's not going to hurt anything if some gets mingled in with the good dirt. 4) - 5) The Earth is the plants natural pot and there's a crap-ton of soil in it So nah, you can't use too much dirt - just find the right sized pot for your plant/space.
Thanks for the response. Just one thing though; If i opt for the high stress method, to my knowledge the only thing thats going to happen is that the plant will stop growing for a few days. Is that the only problem with pulling the plant out of the container, washing most of the soil off, and re-potting it?
I've not experienced slowed groth from repotting, ever. The opposite, in fact. I usually wait until the soil is dry before I repot, by the way. There's no need to wash off the old soil. And don't "pull"! Just tip-and-tap! -mu