In the summer, you can take the plant outdoors on the lawn or over a tub and use a find mist under high pressure from your hose to do most of the work. You can also use a chopstick or a piece of wood dowel sharpened in a pencil sharpener. Yes, they can be separated if you like. Here are some of the tools I use for repotting: The saw with the orange on it is to saw through the root mass. When plants are large, I usually cut off at least the bottom 1/3 - 1/2 of the roots before I start. The stainless steel rake next to the saw is for combing roots out and removing soil. It works very well if the roots aren't too congested. The root hook right of the rake is for stubborn, tangled roots. Pulling it through the roots untangles & straightens them. The white nylon tool and the piece of dowel do the same thing - they remove soil. The white nylon tool is just better at it. It's homemade from a windshield installation glazing stick. The sickle is for cutting stubborn plants from their pots, and the stainless tool that looks a little like pliers is a root cutter, and works very well for large roots. The round brass tool with three heads is a Dramm brand 'Foggit' hose nozzle that sprays fine jets of water under high pressure at 1/2 gal/min. I use it to blast soil off the roots w/o injuring them. A lot of people are either frightened to repot or think messing with roots is taboo, but repotting is NECESSARY if you want to undo the negative effects of only potting up. Potting up ensures your plants will be limited by tight roots (requires a qualifier) - repotting ensures they won't. The qualifier is, potting up doesn't have negative effects unless you go too long between increases in container size. If you pot up before the root/soil mass can be lifted from the container intact, there is no harm. If, however, you allow your plant to become rootbound beyond the point where roots/soil can be lifted from the container intact, growth and vitality are permanently affected until you get into the root mass and correct the problem. You don't need all the specialty tools. You can see the things I use & improvise. You'll hear lots of people tell you that they've had their plants in the same pot or only potted up for X number of years, and usually the plants serve as witness to what folks are telling you. To make a point, not to boast: people are always telling me that my plants look perfect. It's not that difficult. Soil choice is key. W/o a good soil, you're fighting uphill all the way. After that, the rest is easy. A good fertilizer and watering habits, which the soil makes easy, the right light, and regular repots all fit together to do away with practically all the underlying issues that prevent you and your plants from realizing your potential. Toss in an understanding of when to work your plants and when to hold off, and you're golden. Al

yep, i read exoticrainforest site too and put them in dappled sun light and when they were producing sev stalks started watering a LITTLE more. and guess what? got yellow leaves pretty soon - tubers started rotting. it prolly is like sansevieria - IF you put it in 90-95F and in partial sun it can be watered well. but that's a very big IF. if you don't have temps over 80F - don't water it more. and certainly not in winter, when most people have cooler conditions. you def need to let it fully dry out to the bottom before you water. look at my plant - how densely the leaves are set and how fat the bases of stalks are. too much water produces weak spindly 'soft' growth (unless you have above-mentioned hot conditions).

You might get different opinions on removing the fruit, but I would not. It will probably ripen in July. For those of you that don't know where the OP is, see that palm tree in the background? It's pretty hot where he is in summer. The fruit will ripen. I would still repot now, but if you soak the existing pot so you can extract that tree from it's current pot and carefully set it on about 6" of new soil, compressing new soil around that, it will not know the difference. Just don't mess with the roots! They will happily fill in their new pot. Not sure if you get snow in winter. If not, I'd plant it in ground where it sits. But if you do, you'll need to keep it in a container so you can shelter it in winter. Soak the thing only for the transplant, then let it drain for a day or two till a stick you insert tells you it's time to water. Figs hate to sit in water. Well drained soil is best. A poster on GW in the container forum named Al has a formula for gritty mix. That stuff is magic! Google "Soil Sleuth." Its a sweet little cheap plastic stick with notches. You insert into the dirt, twist and bring back up. Easy to see how damp the soil is that's caught in the notches. Too dry, it all falls out. Too wet, it's stuck in there and VERY wet. CHEAP!

Because for many years virtually all mail order hosta sellers washed roots until they were pure white, sometimes with a power washer, and nobody stopped to think whether or not that was a good thing. The sleep/creep/leap explanation took hold without anyone thinking about why it was happening, because most purchased hostas had their roots washed, and that was how they grew. Add to that the fact that a great many gardeners are delighted to see nice white roots, and the belief that it was the natural growth habit took root rather quickly. Way back in the dark ages, the main source for hostas was to find a grower and make an appointment to visit and buy some plants. The hostas would all be in the ground, and as one was chosen, the plant was divided on the spot and put back in the ground. The piece being sold was wrapped in newspaper, dirty roots and all, and bagged up for transport. The buyer was expected to plant it immediately, dirt and all. Shipping hostas was very uncommon, so there was no reason to shake off dirt or wash roots to lower shipping costs. Once mail order hostas became very popular, shipping costs became an issue. As for separating wet hosta roots, well, that's a problem all on it's own. Again, there are many videos out there showing people soaking huge root balls and spraying with garden hoses and all manner of other things. But the fact is that dry hostas separate better than wet hostas, and preserve more roots as well. I never dig hostas when the soil is wet, I want it somewhere between normal and moderately to quite dry. Water provides cohesion, which is not what you want when dividing a hosta. Dig the plant out, consider carefully where to make the first cut through the crown, and then pry the clump apart. Repeat until you have the whole plant divided, or have as many divisions as you need. Shake the clump very gently to remove dirt only as necessary to division, and gently pull and twist and twiddle, and pull the roots apart. Cut roots as necessary, it will do much less damage to the plant than washing would do. A newly divided division, unwashed and replanted immediately in spring or early summer in a good location, should show new growth the first year if it's a mini or small, and definitely by the second year for most hostas. The key is to do as little damage to the roots as possible, leaves grow back quickly, roots take more time, and until a good root structure is restored, you are not likely to see any other growth.