Any suggestions re unsticking plastic flower pots.

I use huge numbers of pots every year and given used ones to save me buying new ones.One thing that drives me up the wall is when they stick together and you almost have a coronary attempting to de stick them. I have tried all sorts of methods but especially when the weather is cold the pots can be quite brittle so sticking something like a paint scrapper between the pots does cause breakages. Sure there must be a solution but I haven’t found it yet! Willing to try all sorts of suggestions as gave up on a stack of 8 today which wouldn’t budge. I ended up hurling them out of the greenhouse in rage, at least by doing that 2 decided to detach themselves.

 

I was going to suggest throwing them at something!

 

Could soaking them in hot water help? I had trouble opening the plastic filler cap on a plastic garden sprayer recently, ran it under the hot tap and it opened. Could help you with the cleaning too.

 

I have found with really stubborn ones, talc or flour can dislodge them from each other.

 

Might go through a few bags of flour @ClematisDbee but thank you for the suggestion. Will give the hot water a go @Plantminded , thank you.The ones I am having a real fight with atm are those pots you see in supermarkets containing cut flowers. They have no drainage holes but a poker in the log burner sorts that out. They seem extra shiny which makes them even worse to separate. Have another 30 odd to struggle with tomorrow as using the pots to pot up loads of Allium bulbs.If the hot water doesn’t work, I think I will take @katecat58 suggestion and thrown them about the garden. If it does not work at least I will have go rid of some pent up anger. Hopefully nobody sees me otherwise I might get committted!

 

I just make sure they never get clean enough inside to go down all the way!
Mind you, there's a disadvantage to this method - I was doing some potting on this afternoon, and having to be pretty disciplined to find all the little slugs hiding between them...

 

Those black ones that the supermarkets sell are the ones I usually struggle with as well, I think they hammer them together before putting the tape on the batch.

Either that or they only sell off the ones they cant separate either, is it the fact that they dont have drainage holes that makes the problem worse.

Have you tried making a hole in the whole lot before separating and letting the air in, although if you are doing it with a hot poker you might weld them all together, I usually use a drill.

 

If you are not putting edibles in them, you could try a little spray of silicone lubricant. Might get expensive tho if you have very large numbers to do. Also need to make sure you don't breath in the fumes.

 

The slugs hide in them even when there's no soil
I often find pots get stuck together - any type of pot, but I usually twist them against each other and that can be enough to free them. I think @Allotment Boy 's idea of a bit of grease might work - a squirt of good ol' WD40 maybe. I also try not to stack them too tightly, but it doesn't mean they stay that way.

Swearing definitely helps @shiney

 

Well, I think I almost qualify as an expert on the subject now! After an evening of hurling glued together pots with little success I certainly have found making holes on multiple stuck together ones is better than trying to get them apart with no holes. The best thing I found was a spatula one side and something like a biro the other.
After MANY hours of fighting with the wretched things and the cats wanting to leave home as they did not go a bomb on the black missiles flying about I have enough to do what I want with them. I only completely lost it with one which I think you will spot!!. A large glass of whisky at the end of proceedings helped deaden the pain.
The idea of @shiney sounds a good one. I usually drill holes individually but had a stack of 8 stuck on top of each other so resorted to doing them altogether. Swearing definitely helps, the air was blue last night.
Now off out to fill the damned things, what a struggle!

 

Hi,

I too like using WD40 for all manner of things @fairygirl. Rather than wait until they are stuck why not spray with WD40 before stacking them?

I have 5L of WD40 and use a 1L cheap spray bottle.

Kind regards, Col.

 

Probably because when you buy them they are already in a stack.

@hailbopp , are there any prizes for spotting the one you lost your temper with, only I think I can see it.

 

For plastic I find the silicone version better. You don't need much and it seems to last a long time. We have a stick vacuum cleaner, the attachments are all hard plastic. I was finding them increasingly difficult to release and relocate. A tiny squirt and a wipe round, and they go on and off easily. Fantastic on plastic curtain rails too. Dust and dirt sticks to standard WD40, and oils and grease.
I'm old enough to remember when WD40 first came out, it was called Rocket WD40, it was developed as water dispersing agent for the Gemini Rocket program. It was applied to surfaces to dispel water and prevent excess ice forming on the outside when they filled the Rocket with liquid Oxygen and other fuel. It's 1001 other uses were only discovered afterwards and as is so often, a happy accident,

 

CORRECTION I just double checked and it's even older than I thought, in fact it was developed in 1958 for the Atlas missile project as a rust prevention treatment. The use by NASA in the 1960's which I described is my first memory of it as a product.