You could root prune a spider plant with a weed whacker and it would be fine afterwards. Start with those if you're feeling nervous, or have specific worries about being too rough with exposed roots. The steps as I understand it are: Remove plant from pot There's often another step after this, which is 'chop off the base of the pot-shaped rootball'. It's sadly common that you'll see lots of circling roots around the bottom of the pot, and there are several reasons to carve the rootball like a turkey before you do anything else at all. 1. You're quite likely to damage them if you try and untangle them, and then you'll just have to remove them anyway. 2. The thick, relatively unbranching roots are the ones that ferry collected nutrients to the top part of the plant. They don't do much collection themselves, and the woody ones don't do any. In a pot, all they do is take up space. 3. They get in the way when you're trying to take the rest of the soil off, especially if they're woody and have woody corners. 4. They get in the way when you're trying to repot, especially if they're woody and have woody corners. Overall it's a lot of effort for very little return, and takes time you might not have. It's less traumatic all round to lop them off and be done with it. If the plant isn't pot-bound, great. Straight onto the next step. Remove as much of old dirt as possible For this you can use a root rake, a chopstick, a jet of water, or your fingers. Whatever you use, take care not to scratch the skin on the roots. Some species tolerate that more than others, but no species likes it. Cut off dead roots, roots growing in a circle around the pot You can do this as part of the previous step. As you're taking the soil off, remove roots that are circling, dead, heavily damaged, or just plain long. These long roots are more trouble than they're worth, being hard to keep undamaged and requiring their own special space in the new pot. You can also cut off old woody roots that are getting in your way, if they don't have many fine roots at the end. You may need to take off a swathe of old roots near the base anyway, so you can get all the soil out of the very centre of the root ball. You may also need to take off another layer of bound roots, if the plant was previously potted up while rootbound. Cut a slit in the corner of this new rootball, going directly through the bundle of roots, and make as many cuts as you need to get access to the interior of the old pot. Once you're done with that, tidy the roots up. Take off root sections that have a single deep wound / multiple scratches, have ends that curve upwards or back towards the plant, have no fine roots branching off near the end (NB: change where the end is; don't cut the whole root at the base!), or cross over other roots. While it's best to correct all of these problems, at this point you may not have many fine roots left. Take the worst offenders, or the ones that are crowding more desirable roots, or the ones with lots of mass but hardly any fine roots, and leave the rest for next year. Cut wedges out of the root ball (this is the one that makes me really nervous) Not always necessary, and redundant if you're bare-rooting. Bare-rooting (and the subsequent pruning) creates space for new, fine roots by removing unwanted roots and sections of unwanted roots while leaving as much fine rootage as possible. Wedges create space for new roots by bulldozing an area of the existing root system, from the thickest roots down to the thinnest and without regard for whether or not those roots are entirely inside the wedge taken. That's not to say wedges are bad -- while the effect on the worked area is... dramatic, the rest of the roots are left undisturbed. Add gritty or 5-1-1 mix to new similar-sized new pot, or well-cleaned old pot Settle plant in new pot, water thoroughly Do not fertilize for awhile (not sure how long) Fertilise when you start seeing new growth. That means the plant is taking up enough water to do more than keep itself turgid, and you can start making osmosis a little less easy by adding fertiliser salts. How long does that take? Depends on the current health of the plant, the potential vigour of the plant, the time of year, and the conditions the plant is exposed to after being repotted.

I was asking about the space on the south side of the house in case you could put a tree or two there to help shade the house (that helps with the A/C cost) as well as the SW corner of the backyard (during the middle of the day). It would be a good idea to spend an afternoon in the backyard with your diagram, plotting exactly what part of the backyard is shaded by the fence and other people's trees (I see some in the pictures that look like they might shade part of your yard). That will give you some idea of how much sun the area near the back fence gets. [Ideally you should have done this at various times earlier in the summer as well, since the sun is higher at midsummer than in the spring and fall.] If you put a tree or two adjacent to the house, the area by the fence will be shaded in the morning. Then in the late afternoon, the area by the fence will be shaded by the fence. In general, this doesn't mean you can't grow veggies, but it means that some won't grow as quickly, and some may not be very happy. For example, theoretically tomatoes need 6 hours of sun, but some manage with less. And theoretically my daylilies shouldn't flower, as they only get sun for a couple of hours during the middle of the day -- but the middle of the day is the brightest sun, and the shade during the rest of the day is a bright shade, and they flower pretty enthusiastically. I'm not sure how much room you'll have for veggies -- at least once the prospective backyard trees(s) get larger. So you could place some of the more decorative veggies in the front or side yards. You might want to ask on the Vegetable forum for their recommendations -- not merely which veggies look better in the front yard, but also books which cover the topic. The only one I know is an oldie, Landscaping with fruits and vegetables, by Fred Hagy -- and IIRC it's more fruits than veggies, though it's also very strong on landscape design. Remember that you can obtain books your public library doesn't own through their Interlibrary Loan service (sometimes for a small fee, depending on the policies of your library and your state library system). I believe GW also has a Potager forum (a type of decorative garden of both flowers and edibles) which would give you some ideas. Carrots have beautiful foliage. Tomatoes used to be grown for their foliage and fruit color by people who believed they were poisonous (in fact, I'm growing a tomato which was developed in the U.S. a hundred years ago as a decorative plant by a man who firmly believed tomatoes were poisonous -- the joke was on him, though, because it's a particularly good-tasting variety). I have a generic Grape tomato with beautiful small-scale foliage which would look marvelous on a trellis. Sweet potatoes are grown for their foliage as well. In the front yard, hide your leafy veggies behind or in-between decorative flowers. Grow crops in the front yard which don't have obvious fruit -- red or chartreuse leaflettuce; decorative cabbage; multi-colored Swiss chard, Florence fennel with its fine, ferny tops; etc. Many herbs are perfect for a flowerbed too.

doc.. i replied to your other post... the issue is HARDENING OFF ... or where the plants were shipped in from.. or whether they were locally grown in a HOTHOUSE or a cold greenhouse ... if the fever forced me to buy too early [been there.. done that ....lol] ... i would put the stuff in a wagon.. and pull them in and out of the garage .. until i INSURED the were properly HARDENED OFF.. one might say.. acclimated.. to my local weather ... here in adrian MI .. just north of toledo.. i would think ABOUT mid april would be a good time to plant properly hardened off dormant perennials ... though would worry a bit.. with frost/freeze potential thru late may ... a zone appropriate perennial.. should be able to handle such.. but if they are actively growing.. they cant be put out too soon ... as active growth is not as hardy to extreme cold as a dormant plant is ...... plus the transplant itself is a shock.. and frost another shock.. and too many shocks is not good ... i see you are way south of me.. subtract a week or two from my MI thoughts .... but with the vagaries of mother nature.. especially during this cold winter.. let me suggest you err towards being a bit late.. rather than a bit early ... suffice to say.. here is the key .. and it works all season long.. just because you can buy it.. that does not mean its the PROPER PLANTING TIME ... e.g. a fully leafed out tree.. at bigboxstore in july/august.. at a bargain price.. should be held until the proper fall planting time ... not whipped in the ground.. on the day you bought it ... so.. if you have the need.. start collecting some plants.. protect them a bit longer.. harden them off .. and start planning where they will go .... never forget.. to really become a green thumb.. you have to kill every plant.. 3 times.. before you succeed .... its how you learn ... now.. lets focus.. do you have a garden bed to put these into ???? .. that is what we work on.. while the plants are in the garage ... BTW.. the garage is left open all day long.. or the wagon is pulled outside to bright shade ... we arent holding them in a dark cave .. but we dont pull them out into full sun.. in little pots ... too great a potential for drying out the roots ... and finally.. if you are dealing with a high end.. local nursery.. they ought to know your area.. talk with them. .. the real caution is dealing with bigboxstores who might be shipping truckloads of plants in from z8 growers.. and that is where a lot of the problems might be .... and that is why the hardening off is such an big deal .... support your local grower.. he will most likely not lead you wrong.. and paying a bit more for a plant.. is worth the guidance ... ken

I am using compact fluorescent at 18 watts to 23 watts. with a temperature range from bright white to daylight. on the citrus floor and warm white to bright white on the ground floor. My choice on bulbs is made by sales. All the pieces are precut and take about 2 hours to assemble and 1 hour to disassemble. It is used for the citrus trees and starting other seed trees to give them a 4 month jump on spring. The ground level is for vegetable starts in spring and growing greens in winter holding pepper plants from 1st frost till the some 50 peppers ripen. The 2 plant you see in the bottom are pepper plants ripening their peppers. At this time I am bout to start harvesting greens. march i'll start my pepper and egg plants for smummer