I agree with hoovb too and you I also agree with deva33 advice to look up Al's gritty mix in the search bar. (And I agree sand shouldn't be used) I switched to Al's mix and my plants are doing SOOO much better! But you being in a droit you would obviously want to add more of one of the ingredients to retain more water (turface) but the mix lasts for quite a few years. (From what I hear, you'd probably have to repot before the gritty mix would need to be changed) but you would have to fertilize with most waterings. But take deva's advice and read up on it first to see if it's something that you would be interested in doing. It works great for me.......but I buy distiller water for my plants. Hope this helped! :)

Thanks Tom! I thought it was too cold to repot outside today, so I managed it indoors. Needless to say, I was unable to rinse the roots. I did shake them out gently a bit to remove loose dirt. It was unbelievable the potting mix they were put in by the grower. They were so damp! It looked like just pure dirt or very fine bark. The drainage was terrible and they were marked as being able to stay in their pot! One of them, the Meyer lemon would have died. I am sure they will be much happier now!

Hello! I've been lurking and learning for some time, but now I want to jump in with a question. I bought this Ficus benghalensis in early June and re-potted it almost immediately. A month later, it was pushing roots out of the drainage holes, so I potted it up. Yesterday I spotted more roots heading for freedom and I'm wondering if I should pot up again, do a full re-pot, or leave well enough alone until spring. For reference, it spends its time in a large south-facing, slightly obstructed window and is in a standard potting mix (FoxFarm Ocean Forest, which I've always had good luck with, but I now know might not drain as quickly as would be ideal). I water when the pot feels light, which is about every 10 days or so in my cool, humid climate. It has been growing slowly and steadily - each of the two trunks has put out two new leaves since I bought it. I would love to take advantage of its youthful exuberance and see more growth, but I want to do what's best for its overall health.

Hi, Vita. A definite growth stopper, root congestion begins to be limiting somewhere near the point in time when the root/soil mass can be lifted from the pot intact; so, if your plant has congested roots, it would definitely benefit from a repot, which is more involved than just potting up. Repotting includes root pruning and a complete change of soil, where potting up is essentially moving the existing congested root mass to a larger pot and filling in any voids with fresh medium. Cutting away some of the roots on the outside of the root mass, particularly at the bottom, can me marginally effective, but provides no where near the rejuvenation that occurs when a grower chooses a full repot as a remedy to root congestion. That said, the plant goes through a yearlong growth cycle that has an annual 'sweet spot' that lasts about a month. In the northern hemisphere, the plant's state of vitality usually peaks sometime in July; this, because it will have regained some of the reserve energy it would have expended to get through the dark days of winter, and it's current ability to make food (plants make their own food during the photosynthetic process - fertilizer isn't plant food) will be peaking due to the longer days and more intense light. It's better to work with the plant's natural cycles that at cross purposes with them. The plant will show it's appreciation and you'll know you're a better nurturer for taking advantage of the plant's strengths and making allowances for when it's not as able to recover quickly, which leaves it more susceptible to diseases and insect predation. I have at least 30 ficus covering more than a dozen species, and I try to repot all that need repotting as close to the summer solstice as possible. No trees like or prefer congested roots, but for Ficus, it's not an emergency that requires immediate remediation. You could use the time between now and summer to put together a care regimen that would culminate in repotting in the summer - assuming you live in the N hemisphere and not particularly close to the equator. The closer to the equator you are, the less variation there will be in the plant's vitality during the growth cycle, so the less important timing is. I have no idea how interested you are in putting a plan together - let me know if you'd like to learn more. Al