This is part 9 of The Garden Guide — the studio's field manual for building a native garden from bare ground in Canberra and the Southern Tablelands. Start at the overview if you've just arrived.
The tactile part. Small techniques, done a thousand times — worth getting right.
Getting plants out of hiko trays
Set the tray on the ground — plants pop out with more force than you'd expect. Put a finger up through the hole in the base of the cell and push until the plant lifts.
Never pull on the stem. Squeezing a stem breaks the veins inside it. That can kill the plant outright or permanently slow it down. Grasses will tolerate a gentle pull; nothing else will.
Root-bound and won't budge? Use a metal rod sized to fit the drain hole and tap the end — the vibration pops it out. Or strike the tray: a sharp tap with a stick vibrates the roots free of the cell walls so they slide out.
Getting plants out of tubes
Take the tube and the flat back of a pair of secateurs. Find a corner where you won't damage the plant and tap the pot firmly — one corner, then another. The vibration loosens the soil from the tube wall. Once you see it start to slide, a small thrust and the whole plug comes out. It's easily the best method, and it keeps your fingers off the stems.
Loosening roots — only if needed
People loosen roots reflexively. Most plants don't need it. Only when the plug is genuinely root-bound — roots wrapping round and round the shape of the pot — run the secateurs down the face a few times. You're not tearing it up. You're changing the direction the roots are running, so they grow out into the soil instead of continuing to circle the shape of a pot that isn't there any more.
TerraCottem — worth it?
A soil conditioner, and an expensive one — a 5kg tub runs about $400, and you use a teaspoon per plant. I've seen tangible enough results to recommend it, so it's worth understanding what you're paying for.
| Component | Share | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Hydro-absorbent polymers | ~40% | The "water crystals". They swell into a gel, holding water and dissolved nutrients that would otherwise drain past the roots. As the soil dries, the plant draws that water back out. |
| Growth precursors | ~0.25% | Tiny fraction, big effect. They trigger root cells to elongate and differentiate in the first growth phase, so the plant builds a real root system faster. |
| Fertiliser | ~10% | NPK plus trace elements. |
| Volcanic rock | ~50% | The carrier that distributes it through the hole. |
A young plant's most dangerous moment is the fortnight after it goes in the ground, before it has the root system to feed itself. This shortens that window from both ends: hold water where the roots are, and get the roots out there faster to find it.
Using it: a teaspoon (~5g) per hole, mixed into the base so it isn't sitting as a single lump. Don't spill it on the surface — surface water crystals hold moisture after rain, roots grow toward moisture, and you'll pull the root system up to where it will dry out and die. It's not organic — skip it if you're running a fully organic garden; you can grow a healthy garden without it.
Putting the plant in
- Pull the mulch aside and keep it — it goes back at the end. Dig until you hit actual soil.
- Set the plant slightly below the surrounding soil level — the level it sat at in the pot goes just under the finished level.
- On a slope, dig from the downhill side so the spoil lands downhill.
- Backfill, getting soil behind the plug too. Pack down firm but not hard — you're closing air gaps that roots can't bridge.
- Mound the soil slightly on the downhill side to build a well.
- Bring the mulch back — close to the plant but never touching the stem.
Water it properly. The well is the whole point — pour water in and it stays over the roots instead of running off down the slope. Fill the well, move to the next plant, come back when it's drained, fill it again. Two or three times. Twenty or thirty seconds per plant, and the plant goes in genuinely watered rather than notionally watered.
This series comes from the Garden Guide I give my design clients. I write one letter a week on spatial design, craft and technology — and subscribers read the full guides first.
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