I Cut My Plant’s Roots In Half...And This Happened

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I've been professionally doing outdoor landscape installation since 2007, and this is 100% STANDARD practice.

I do this all the time. My mother taught me. I have plants more than 40 years old without having changed the pot😊

Worked at a tree nursery and would regularly prune the roots of young unpotted trees just as the growing season started. Adopted this practice with my houseplants and the results are stunning.

I ALWAYS cut about 40% roots off what I’m repotting and usually use the same pot. So I can attest this is a great practice. But I always wait about 2-3 days to water so the cuts can heal a bit.

This is probably the best explanation of "root bound" I've ever heard. I usually repot in a larger pot. I never even thought of reducing the roots.

This is great advice. Root pruning is a normal routine in the art of Bonsai to keep your pot size small. But with Bonsai repotting, the general rule is to prune an equivalent amount of top growth for the amount of roots that are removed to maintain balance between the top and the root system and lessen the chance of shock. For If the plant does not have the root system to support the top growth there could be welting or even die back of top growth. Just keep that in mind.

nice video, good information for SOME plants. I ran a greenhouse for 7 years and also am an avid gardener (indoor and outdoor) for 50+ years. A couple of things I would mention that aren't mentioned in your video, though... 1) when repotting a plant, you should use a big enough pot to allow 1" or more gap at the top of the pot to allow for a good watering (you can't water one very well if the root ball is all the way to the top of the pot) 2) not all plants like to have endless root space; most geraniums and many other flowering plants start to bloom when they are potbound or almost potbound 3) some of the plants you chopped were hardly rootbound, I wouldn't chop one until it is clearly a mass of intertangled roots at the bottom; some plants like spider plants always have a mass of tubular roots and once they are potbound, that is when they send out their babies on separate stalks; 4) soil mixture is EVERYTHING in plant culture, not every soil is perfect for every plant, it is wise to check what soil the plant prefers. Although some commercial mixes today are very good, they don't satisfy a plant that wants a sandy soil or one with a lot of peat moss. Even if I do chop a plant I will usually split it down the middle and trim the bottom 1/3 of roots only, and split into two plants so they both can flourish. 5) some plants like rhizomatious begonias don't have much of a root structure, the rhizomes store the nutrients above the soil in many cases, so it is not wise to chop them up as they are very sensitive to root disturbances. 🙂

I was a Nurseryman for 17 years, my dad was a Nurseryman for 55 years. Great advice. With Bonsai, we root prune every two growing seasons and add a bit of fresh soil, but not strong fertilizer. We have a Maple that’s been in the same pot for 40+years.

My neighbor audibly gasped when she was watching me plant my garden. They all came from a nursery, were all root bound, and some were rotting. I literally just ripped the bottom half off,picked through he rest for mush,and left maybe a third of roots. After one week all of the flowers look great and are going like weeds. She said she's too scared to do that. I said well that explains why your exact same plants we bought on the exact same day are dead and mine are not...😂 Edit to say I deal with African violets and other epiphytic plants so I'm used to messing with roots and trimming them.

In the aquarium hobby it's advised to cut the tips of the roots before planting in your substrate. It encourages new root growth which helps the plant anchor itself and not uproot itself

Omg thank god for this man!! I don’t want my plants getting any bigger as I’m tired of buying new pots constantly and I don’t have the space for huge plants

Curting a plant almost always encorages new growth. Thats why grass cutting is such a great racket.

'Root pruning is one of the dark arts of house plant care' 🤣 I love your humour and the way you phrase things, it's so Brittish 👍🏻 I never tried or even thought about this solution to root-bound plants, but I'm willing to try it out. I got a five chilli pepper plants from last year, they are now pretty big and in need of watering almost every other day, despite them being in three litre pots... They have a lot of flowers and two of them have some chillies growing already. Might be best to wait with the root pruning of them until fall. Pruning the roots while they have flowers and/or peppers growing might stress the plant too much Thank you for the video, I will certainly try out root pruning

I’ve root pruned by 3 year old Meyer lemon tree when I bought my new house. I didn’t want to leave it at my old apartment. I clipped all the root’s except for the feeder root (I waited about 2 weeks after root pruning). It went into shock, but it came back, and now after a few years, it looks better than ever. Happy pruning!

Thanos was right.

This technique worked great for my orchid. Its roots were literally climbing out of its pot like a giant spider. Chopped off its long skinny "legs" along with enough pot bound roots to allow the orchid to fit comfortably into its pot. Has been blooming like crazy ever since!

In retrospect, this kinda makes sense to me because growing out in the non-potted world, you'd expect plants roots to get eaten by bugs and whatever, so of course they'd have adaptive strategies for regrowth, and they may even become dependent on such renewals.

For people who are not as familiar with plant care, this is valuable information. Much of the language in literature that is out there really does leave one feeling the roots are so delicate that one must be very careful not to disturb them. … I actually discovered this trick on accident years ago when first fumbling through plant care. I needed a favorite plant to fit back into its container. So, I cut the roots back in the spring, and it grew to about 5 times its previous size that summer. Now, I do it when needed to plants that need a boost. Bravo for sharing this.

As horticulture gardeners in Germany, we've been tought in trade school to simply make a few slices with a knife through the root ball when repotting it. Exactly as with pruning branches, the cut roots will start growing multiple new fine roots from each cut. I've not heard about cutting off a whole third of the root ball (since commercially we only deal with young plants, not old ones), but for struggling plants that are not supposed to grow any larger, all of this really sounds like a great idea that makes perfect sense with how plants and their roots are understood by professionals.