POTTING OR SHIFTING PLANTS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1798, 22 August 1906, Page 17

POTTING OR SHIFTING PLANTS

Transferring plants from one pot to another is called shifting. Cuttings or seedlings arc placed first into very small pots, and gradually transferred or shifted into larger ones as each plant advances in growth and dimensions. The first potting is the simpler, but has to bo guided by certain rules if the tender subjects operated upon are to take root promptly and succeed'. An allimportant part of potting is selecting proper composts for various kinds of plants. Some natural orders prefer firm eoi.l (Heaths, Azaleas, etc., for instance). others more “open,” looser composts and potting, as do Balsams, Primulas, and the like ; Orchids, fibrous peat, white moss, and potsherds; Cacti, a form of fertile rubble, and so on. All require a perfect base drainage, and all composts—firm, light, fibrous, or what not —must allow free percolation of water. The use of gritty sliver sand is the greatest safeguard in this respect. Wliether a seedling or rooted cutting has to he potted for the first time, or established plants have to be shifted, a firm base of new compost must be made over the crock drainage before either in placed thereon. The depth of this first base strata must be such as to insure the collar (tho part from whence the upper roots emanate) being about half ail inch below tho level of the pot rim. In tho case of first pollings it is desirable to spread the roots out, or slightly jerk the small plants, to let the soil settle amongst their roots. Aim at making the compost equally firm from base to surface. Old balls taken out of pots often require reducing, in view of giving plants more new compost when shifted than would be otherwise possible. This luv-i to be done in such manner as to cause the least possible injury to existing roots.