In this repotting diaries I’m paying attention to my manjula pothos, maranta, some sansevieria/dracaena plants + at the end of the post, showing some of my newest houseplant purchases I posted on my instagram the other week. As I’ve said in the previous two posts in this series, these posts are intended to be short + ‘behind the scenes’ in style; showing a more everyday + relaxed view of what it is like to live with a lot of plants. In addition, if you have any of these plants it might help to see how I’ve repotted mine + things to look out for.
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This one really did need repotting since around December but I wanted to wait until Spring, it was doing ok apart from needing more regular watering + the roots were growing out of the bottom of the pot! This variety is often marketed as ‘Happy Leaf’ pothos + I guess I can see why — the foliage is quite large for a pothos + the leaves are extremely painterly with excellent variegation. I’ve got a blog post about the different pothos varieties here.
Pothos usually settle in easily to their new pot + will show their appreciation with lovely new growth. Be sure to only go up one or two pot sizes at a time with these — they tend to grow better this way. I’m really looking forward to seeing this one start to trail a bit… I’d better get making another macrame hanger!
First new leaf to unfurl one week after repotting:
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I just love these leaves. This maranta leuconeura kerchoveana didn’t do so well over winter as I kept forgetting to water it due to its location on top of my fridge. I cut it back quite a bit but knew that a repot was needed as I’m pretty sure it was still in its nursery pot from absolutely ages ago. I repotted this plant two weeks ago + it’s already throwing out 4 new leaves… I will take that as a thank you! Here’s the process…
Look at those roots… they’ve taken on the shape of the pot! When repotting, always make sure to loosen these roots with your hands — it helps the plant to settle into its new environment a little quicker, especially if they have been in their current pot a while like mine.
The photo above shows it right after potting + below is two weeks later:
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You might have heard that the beloved ‘snake plant’ has been re-classified into the genus ‘Dracaena’… weird right?! I think it’s going to take a while for me to get used to calling these plants dracaena but either way, these ‘whatever-you-want-to-call-them‘ trifasciata var. laurentii plants needed some care! I’d been rooting some cuttings in water which were ready to plant (there’s a post on that process here) + thought about combining some of these mish-mash of pots to condense things a little. I’ve got a brighter spot for these plants in my new place so I’m hoping for some nice growth over the next few months. Despite being called a ‘lower-light’ plant, I prefer to keep these in brighter conditions. They are quite slow growers so by giving them more light + regular feeding, they can grow quite well!
When I can get hold of the right sized pot I think I’ll put all these in one to make a lovely statement plant but for now, this will have to do. Over winter these plants don’t need watering much at all which can result in very dry, hard + compacted potting mix come Spring time. I wanted to have a look at the roots + give these pots a soil refresh. I used a mix of houseplant compost, cacti + succulent compost + perlite to keep things light + well draining:
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Lastly, I thought I’d share my new plants I posted on my Stories a few weeks ago as I haven’t mentioned them on the blog yet. I got one of the plants I’ve been wanting for AGES… a rhaphidophora tetrasperma! I also wanted to see how the tradescantia ‘nanouk’ compared to my tradescantia fluminensis tricolour so picked up one of those. I got both from Cowells.
Hope you enjoyed seeing what has been on my potting table —
*No affiliate links used in this post. I bought the plants mentioned with my own money.
HOUSEPLANTHOUSE 