Place your plant in the new pot and fill in with soil until all roots are covered and air. Firm soil gently to ensure that there are no air pockets, but take care not to crush delicate roots. Water lightly so that the new soil is moist, but not sopping wet.
Make sure the plant is well watered 2-4 days in advance. You don't want to repot when it's sopping wet but being too dry will cause stress. Take the plant out of the pot. If the rootball is a bit tight, gently massage the roots to loosen them up.
For most tropical houseplants, if the soil is dry and due for its next watering, go ahead and water it thoroughly and let it drain completely before you begin to repot. If the soil is already wet, you can skip this step.
Ideally, you should transplant a moistened plant into moistened soil. Pre-moistening your plant will ensure that it is as healthy as it can be prior to the shock of replanting. Your plant will have to expend a lot of energy trying to adapt to its new environment.
A thirsty plant is a stressed plant, and already unhappy plants won't adjust well to the move. Plus, a damp root ball will be easier to work with than a dry one. You'll need a new pot that's 1 to 2 inches larger in diameter than the plant's root ball.
Maybe the pot is too small for it. Perhaps the soil needs to be changed. There might be a pest or disease problem. Plants need water; If they don't have enough water, they can't take up nutrients from their soil, which means they'll wilt and become sick.
Moisten the soil. You should definitely water your plant a little now, but do not give it a full watering. It's best to wait at least a day since you just watered it before you repotted it.
Make a ball of soil and drop it. If the ball crumbles, your garden is ready for seeds. If it holds its shape or breaks into two clumps, it's still too wet for planting. You can also step into the garden and then step back and look at the footprint you've left in the soil.
You can do the ball test to see if the time is right. Dig some soil and form a tight little ball in your hands. Press your fingers into it. If it stays together it's too wet.
You can either go for the bath method and bottom water, or thoroughly top water. I prefer to give plants a bath (bottom water) as step one, a day or two before I repot, then I like to thoroughly top water drench after repotting, as top watering also helps flush out excess dirt and silt from the new substrate.
Loosening the root ball when repotting is only essential when the plant has become completely root bound. In cases where they are not completely rootbound, you may be able to plant directly into the next pot. If the roots are not wrapped tightly around each other, there is no need to cut and disturb them.
Botanists explained that the roots are delicate and touching them can break the smaller ones. While this is still considered true, the current view is that you can do more damage if you don't wash the soil from the tree roots before you plant.
For larger plants or trees, it can take months or even years for all problems caused by transplant shock to resolve. A simple case of wilting after repotting can be resolved with good care and often the plant has no residual signs of damage. A more severe case can result in dead or damaged foliage.
The goal is to water the soil well to saturate it into the planting root zone. And give the soil plenty of time to drain slightly but not dry out completely before you plant.
In general, houseplants' potting soil should be kept moist, but not wet. They normally need watering once or twice a week in the spring and summer, but less in the autumn and winter.
The soil in your garden should take about a week to dry out after normal watering. If the soil is still wet for more than a week, without outside contributing factors like rain or flooding, there might be a waterlogging or drainage problem.
If the plant itself makes up more than ⅔ of the height, it's time to repot. Not all plants grow taller; some grow fuller or longer (think trailing varieties). The same rule applies, though: Consider repotting whenever the plant seems to outgrow its home, Greene says.
Plants can get stressed, just like us. Whether it happens overnight after being repotted in your cute new pot or over the course of several days after their environment drastically changes, they are great at communicating their stress with us.
Stop Watering the Plant
But stopping your watering is always the first step. If you're overwatering, you'll likely notice that the soil is wet, so you want to make sure that soil is bone dry before you're ready to break out the watering can again.
Transplant shock is a term that refers to a number of stresses occurring in recently transplanted trees and shrubs. It involves failure of the plant to root well, consequently the plant becomes poorly established in the landscape.
A common reason is that the potting mix has dried out and isn't absorbing the water. Most commercial potting mixes contain peat, which holds water well once it has been moistened, but -- as everyone who works with sphagnum peat outdoors knows -- is difficult to wet the first time.
Transplant shock can be caused by incorrect planting. Frequently, plants being repotted don't have very big root systems. Damaging or disturbing these less developed root systems too much during repotting can definitely cause transplant shock.