I've been holding on to some clones that are about 3 feet tall now and won't go into the dirt for another month for my summer outdoor. A friend told me their size contributes greatly to transplant shock. What is your experience with that?
Just depends on how many shovels you have. Me and my buddy did an outdoor transplant. Luckly it was only 1 foot tall. Well we made a huge clump of root and dirt. Didn't stress her tho. make sure you do it right! My guess you'll have to move 150lb+ of dirt
I'm building some pretty large beds. The 3 foot kids are in 10 gallon smartpots. Not too hard to work with.
Out of 10 gallon smarties.....not many issues besides the handeling of a big plant. can be ungainly, get help. One to hold plant, and one to "skin" the smart pot off.
You can monkey fuck one by yourself easy enough, I did 2 big ones last year and they didn't have any trouble, give some b-12 or super thrive and they will be fine
My advise would be to slice down the side of the smart pot, slide the pot out from under the plant, and lace the pot back up the with shoelaces. Then next time you need to transplant you can just unlace the side of the pot. Super easy. The only other things that lead to transplant shock are the soil being massively different from what's in the pots to what's in the ground. I like to mix some native soil into my pots, and some potting soil into the ground, that way it's never a big shock to go from one medium to another. And of course you always want to harden your plants off to the sun before leaving moving them out permanently. Good luck.