Spirea from the box store

Ready for spring. I was going to repot but I did some serious root cutting last spring, and decided another season for recovery and then I'll find a nice shohin pot, or a glazed saucer [url=http://www.servimg.com/view/18082002/58][/url

how long have you had that in a pot ?

reason i ask is that i do not have good luck with spireas in a pot for some reason...

Spiraeas (similar to potentilla and forsythia) are quite finnicky with root pruning; so unless the roots haven't filled the pot (not to be confused with pot-bound), you did good to leave it alone for this year.

Most novice in the West (i.e me); including the intermediate guys tend to repot far too frequently. I think the western literature (i.e books, internet, etc.) is partly to blame because we are told to repot the younger plants every 1 to 3 years, and older from 5 to 10 years. What we fail to understand is that plants spend a lot of energy populating the pots with roots in the expense of top growth.

So the only time we should ideally repot plants is when the roots have barely compacted the soil. Some people figure it out by poking the soil with a chopstick to see how compact it is, or if the water drainage has slowed a bit over time.

yeah junnie... that was what i was thinking as i have had similar bad luck with potentilia and thought that might be why...

beer city snake wrote:how long have you had that in a pot ?

reason i ask is that i do not have good luck with spireas in a pot for some reason...

this will be its second summer in this pot. They grow roots like a mofo, this still had quite a bit of soil visable, hence not repotting. I like what juniper07 chimed in with, I did not know that so it will definitely be added to my memory bank. Also I use a heavy organic garden soil with chicken grit and pea pebbles as the only additive. Abou a third of each, they seem to love it.

yeah B - sounds like a good call on the soil...

Mid may update, about another month of in restricted growth and it will be cut back pretty hard to obtain a nice shape similar to where it is now. t[url=http://www.servimg.com/view/18082002/61][/url