Potting Plants 101: Choosing the right size pot

Now that you’ve brought home your new plant (or plants, we get it), and you’ve let them acclimate to their new home for a few weeks, it’s finally an acceptable time to repot! You don’t really need to repot your plant until it begins to show signs that it’s time, but you can definitely repot to stay on top of the health of your plants root systems.

It may be tempting to buy a pot just because you like the color or pattern, but you don’t want to buy a pot that is too big or too small for your plant. You only want the new pot to be 1- 1 1/2 sizes larger than the one it is currently in. Let’s talk about why this is such an important decision!

Unless you waited way too long to repot your plant, you don’t have to worry about them running out of room. If your plant is currently in a 4 inch pot, it wouldn’t survive in a 7 or 8 inch pot because that would be double the amount of soil that the roots are used to. The roots would absorb as much water as they could, not all of it. This leaves them sitting in wet soil, which leads to root rot.

It’s always good to have a back up pot handy before you start the repotting process. If your plant has suffered from root rot or has not been properly watered for too long, you may discover that some of it’s root system has died off. In this case, you will want to choose a pot that is the same size as the one you took it out of or smaller. This varies depending on how much of the root system is lost.

If you’ve noticed that your plant has roots growing on top of the soil and out of the drainage holes, it’s exhibiting stunted growth, and water just pours over the soil and doesn’t seem to absorb, you can choose a pot that is 2 inches bigger. These are signs that you waited much too long to repot your plant and it will quickly acclimate to a larger pot.