Marianne's Response

How To Repot My Plant

I have a leggy, wide Chinese Evergreen plant with multiple stems. Any advice on how to repot it? Thanks!

Posted by Tamara Valdiserri on September 13, 2020

Marianne's Response

It looks like your houseplant is ready to reproduce. It may sound shocking but you can cut off those two long side arms or branches from your plant, remove all the leaves from the lower half of the newly cut stems. Now  put the cut end of the cutting  in a vase of water. New roots will appear after six weeks or so and you can pot up these new plants. Now the mother plant will be more compact and can be repotted into a container just one or two sizes larger than the pot it is in now. Use potting soil and replant at the same level the plant was growing before. If you look on the back of a bag of potting soil it often will show you a diagram on how to put soil into the bottom of a pot, then add the plant then fill in around the roots of the plant with more soil. Always water well after transplanting. In order to get your plant out of the original container soak the soil then use a knife to loosen the soil all around the edge of the pot. Turn the plant upside down and knock the rim of the pot on the table to try and ease the plant out of the pot. Do not worry if you need to cut up some roots to get it out of the pot. The type of house plant you have is very tough and it will grow new roots in its new home. I like to add half a teaspoon of Osmocote to the soil of all my houseplants. I do this just once a year and then I do not need to think about feeding the plant for an entire year.