How to Transplant Successfully

You lovingly established your plant in one place, and it’s time to find it a new home. Whether it’s because it grew too big for its pot or you need to move your in-ground plant to a better location for growth, transplantation is the way to go. In horticulture, transplant means to remove a plant or tree from one location and reset it in another. This might be moving a seedling or an established plant. Learn what you can do to transplant successfully to help your plant thrive in its new location.

Tips to Transplant Successfully

When you are ready to move your plant to a new home, it’s important to disturb it as little as possible as transplantation can cause great stress. To help your plant thrive through this transition, there are a few things you should do:

• Choose the right container or location. Before you take the time to transplant your plant, make sure you are moving it to a location where it can thrive. You wouldn’t want to move a sun-loving plant into the shade or give your container plant a smaller home. Evaluate your options.
• Select the best soil or soilless media. There are seemingly endless combinations of media mixes to choose from. Your two main options are soil and soilless mixes. Each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks, so it’s important you do your research to figure out what is most important for the plant you are growing and the growing location.
• Add nutrients to your media mix. Before you move your plant to its new home, add the right nutrients to support growth through the stress of transplantation. There are many roles of macronutrients for growing, including helping roots establish, which is essential when moving a plant from one place to another.
• Focus on growing roots down, not out. Rather than choosing a wide-but-shallow pot, select one that has enough depth to encourage roots to grow down toward the bottom. This will help your roots take greater hold in the soil, allowing it to further defend itself against harsh conditions like strong winds that can topple shallow-rooted plants.
• Disturb the roots as little as possible. Because the roots of your plant are critical to transplantation success, you’re better off disturbing them as little as possible. If the roots are completely covered in the soil and tightly wound together, gently pull them apart to encourage growth in the new pot.

What to Do When Plants Won’t Establish

The truth of the matter is that plants aren’t designed to be transplanted. If left alone without human intervention, they are either thriving or dying exactly where they establish. With this in mind, it’s no wonder not all transplantation efforts happen without a hitch. If your transplanted plants aren’t establishing, try these things:

• Check for disease and pests. Unfortunately, you might be exposing your plants to new diseases and pests when you change soil. Inspect for signs of disease to help you determine if you need to take additional steps to make your plant healthy again. This might involve transplanting again after washing the roots.
• It’s not getting the right amount of light. Consider the new location of your plant. If it was thriving before and is suddenly not growing at the same rate, it might not be exposed to the right amount of sunlight. If the plant is in a new pot, consider trying out a different location to see if it helps.
• You choose a pot that’s too small. Often times, people transplant their plants when they get too big for their current containers. If you didn’t size up enough, the roots won’t have the chance to spread out. Soon after transplanting, you might see the plant tipping over. Over time, you’ll likely observe stunted growth.
• It’s not getting enough water. Too little irrigation is one of the leading causes of transplantation struggles. Water regularly after transplanting, ensuring you keep the soil moist while the roots become established again.

Support Transplantation Success with Harvest Hero

Ensuring your plant has the proper nutrients and soil to grow is one of the keys to transplantation success. Harvest Hero Enhanced Perlite Mix is a nutrient-rich soilless amendment and growing medium that is a 3-in-1 blend comprised of perlite, diatomaceous earth, and essential nutrients. This mix has been designed by Harvest Hero’s team of engineers and agronomists to improve soil structure for nutrition which promotes bigger plants and bigger yields. Harvest Hero Enhanced Perlite Mix supports growth by improving soil quality, providing plant nutrients, and amending soil properties to make it easier for the plant to absorb and translocate essential plant nutrients to the root system.

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