On 4/2/07 10:23, in article , "Chris S"
wrote:


"Planet X" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've got a dwarf bamboo that has totally filled a 15" decorative pot.
I want to remove it from the pot and plant it in the garden. Of
course, nothing is that easy; the pot has a pinched in rim!!

Has anyone any useful tips that will enable me to extract the rootball
without cracking the pot? The pot has quite a large 'mouth' and it
has reasonably thick walls.

Thank you

I would suggest soaking the pot / compost so that it becomes flexible -
planting anything vigorous / long lived in a pot which has a pinched rim is
always going to come to this - if the pot isn't precious, then no problem,
but it may break in the process of trying to remove bamboo. Depending on how
long it has been in there, it may be tightly confined. Good luck :-) Let us
know how you get on, as I need to do similar with a purple elder which has
outgrown a glam blue glazed pot.!

We made the mistake of planting Euryops in Ali Baba pots four or five years
ago. There isn't a prayer of getting them out! Just recently, a high wind
knocked one of them over and the pot broke, displaying the most incredible
mat of roots in the perfect shape of the pot's interior. Nothing would have
extricated those - literally nothing. I think that Rupert wrote that he had
once managed to free a root bound plant from a large pot using a pressure
washer, so it might be worth trying that but the plant and pot's survival
will always be in question.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)