Breaking up roots on plug plants?

Hi everyone,

I was potting up some plug plants that had arrived in the post last week, which were quite pot-bound. My mum was helping and was tearing up the roots, much more than I would have done. Of course she's been doing this a lot longer than me, but I just wanted to sense-check... how much, if at all, would you 'loosen' or 'break' the roots on little plug plants that have tangled crowded roots?

Thanks for your thoughts

 

Me personally, not at all.

Young seedling plants are a very different proposition to large pot grown plants I tend to think.

So I would have just planted them into pots with the minimum of disturbance.
Thats why they grow them as plug plants.

 

I agree with Pete, leave alone, let them sort themselves out.

 

I had some very small plugs arrive last week. The plugs were completely wrapped around with roots. I used a pencil to tease the roots at the tip of the plug apart a bit.

But these are perennials (Lavender), I wouldn't have bothered for bedding plants (and I doubt the roots would have grown like that)

I'm a bit bothered that most of the plugs had two plants in, this one had three!, dunno how they will be as they grow.

Tray of Lavender plugs


Lavender plug - the plug is about 1" long


Potted up in 3" pots

 

Hi Kristen, Wow that's a lot of lavender! Where did you get them from? I've got 10 lavender plugs on their way Love lavender.

Yes, the roots on mine were even worse than those on the lavender, but there was only one plant per plug. All were perennials. My mum, happily tearing them to pieces, was saying that if we didn't then the roots would be unable to get loose into the soil and they wouldn't feed properly as a result. The roots were a really big mess to be fair... but she was going at it with some vigour!! I like the idea of using a pencil though, that's a good tip.

Still not sure if I did the right thing!

 

"Where did you get them from?"

van Meuwen (part of T&M)
Plug Plants | Garden Plants | Bedding Plants | Bulbs | Van Meuwen

If you buy 126 plugs they are 14p each :thumb:

 

Sounds interesting to me as my wife is after a lavender bed.

I believe there's 10% Quidco cashback that can be knocked off that price, and they occasionally do weekend online P&P free offers, sign up for newsletter and get P&P free (they did both last month).

 

I've got around 30 cuttings of lavender from just one bunch I cadged off a neighbour...they root so easily.