"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
om...
"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
...
"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
om...

[snip]

I'd also guess (but it's only a guess) 40 cm is too big a pot:
best
way is the old rule of patiently going up one size at a time,
and
only
when the roots have definitely reached the outside of the old
pot,
so
that any water you give will immediately go to the plant, rather
than
hang about going stagnant. (Some people, in this group notably
Franz,
ignore this rule without ill effect; but they have a watering
regime
to suit.)

That is an urban legend. If there were any truth in it, all
plants
planted in the open ground, which is an infinite sized pot for
practical purposes, should fail.

I planted a very young Acer palmatum atropurpureum directly in a
45 cm
pot about eight years ago and have never repotted it. It thrives.

We've done this one to death before, Franz. I still maintain that
you
operate a sensitive watering regime which avoids causing damage. And
that the open ground in a typical garden doesn't resemble a
container,
as it doesn't prevent water-movement and air-entrainment.

I said that it was an infinite-sized container, which is what it is,
to a very good approximation.
Please reread what my actual point was, which was to debunk the idea
that overpotting a smallplant is bad for its wellbeing.

I am sorry that I dragged in the red hering about the potted Acer.
The point I tried to make about the Acer was that it started off life
by being grossly overpotted and is now seriously underpotted, and it
is still thriving.

Waterlogged
areas of open ground are just as deadly to most plants as
water-logged
containers.

Yes. However, I was not discussing waterlogged pots or waterlogged
open plots. I was commenting on the nonsense that overpotting a small
plant is bad for it. My point is that if putting a small plant in an
oversized pot is bad for it, then putting it in the open ground will
be even worse for it, which is patently nonsense.

Franz