We recently talked about the Areca Palm I bought when I first moved into my new apartment. It was one of the first purchases I made. I bought a bed and a new mattress. Then I bought the palm. I like to use plants in the interior spaces. They are beautiful and they help to clean the air which is a special problem in the winter months here in the mid-Atlantic. We close up our houses and apartments once cold weather arrives and we do not open them up again for several months until spring arrives. Since spring is taking its time arriving this year, we will have an even longer period of stale indoor air. Transferring the palm from the plastic pot in to a large planter was easier than I expected. Take a look.
Here is the planter I bought when I bought the palm. I really liked the color and design of this planter. The color matches very closely to the shade of grey I have used throughout the apartment. The shell design I thought was very unusual. You do not see that sort of design on planters, so I thought this would stand out in the interior scheme.
For those who are regular customers at Lowe's, I am certain you will recognize the allen + roth label on this planter. They have an extensive line of home goods at Lowe's which are quite beautiful. I think they are priced well and the quality of their merchandise is quite good. I would recommend their line to anyone looking for fashionable home décor items.
I started by removing the palm in the original pot from the planter and placing it in a plastic tray while I worked on preparing the planter. I thought this would be a good idea rather than just sitting it on the floor. I should note here - if you transplanting any plant, do it when the soil in the container you are transferring from is dry. Otherwise you are in for a huge mess.
Here is our planter, cleaned out and ready to have our beautiful Areca Palm planted permanently.
We started with a bag of pea pebbles. Since I decided not to use the drainage hole in the bottom of the planter, it is important to give the water somewhere to go rather than just sitting in the planting soil. As the water passes through the soil, the roots will grab what they need immediately and the rest will filter down to the bottom of the planter where it will create a humid environment for the soil but will not keep the soil like a bog.
I set the original pot back in the planter on top of the pea pebbles to get an idea of how this was going to work and to see if I needed to remove any of the pebbles. The top of the original pot was level with the top of the planter, so I did not remove any of the pebbles. This will give us a good base for proper drainage in the planter so we do not end up with root rot.
I removed the original pot and set the root ball on top of the pebbles in the new planter. Since the soil was dry, the root ball slipped right out of the pot with no, or very little effort. I used my hand to loosen the soil.
Then I used two bags of this Cactus, Palm & Citrus potting mix from Miracl-Gro to fill the rest of the planter.
Once the planter was sufficiently filled with potting mix, I gave it a good, soaking drink. A good drink of water will be the best thing for it since there is some shock to any plant when you transfer it from one pot to another. The other good thing about this planter is that it is nice and large which will allow for expansion of the roots.
I thought some Spanish Moss would like particularly nice on top of the soil as a pot topper. This always add a nice look for very little investment of money.
I used three bags of Spanish Moss in this planter. One bag would have looked too sparse. I might have been able to get away with two bags, but in the end, I really liked the look with all three bags.
Over time, this will settle down with each watering and become more a part of the whole planting.
I was very pleased with the end result. You can see in the picture about that I did some trimming of the palm. It suffered somewhat during the dry, winter months, but there is new growth which should open in the next few weeks. When winter arrives this year I will use a room humidifier to keep the humidity levels up inside the apartment. Palms need humidity, otherwise the fronds will brown on the tips.
I hope this tutorial has been helpful if you are considering transplanting any of your houseplants.
Here is the planter I bought when I bought the palm. I really liked the color and design of this planter. The color matches very closely to the shade of grey I have used throughout the apartment. The shell design I thought was very unusual. You do not see that sort of design on planters, so I thought this would stand out in the interior scheme.
For those who are regular customers at Lowe's, I am certain you will recognize the allen + roth label on this planter. They have an extensive line of home goods at Lowe's which are quite beautiful. I think they are priced well and the quality of their merchandise is quite good. I would recommend their line to anyone looking for fashionable home décor items.
I started by removing the palm in the original pot from the planter and placing it in a plastic tray while I worked on preparing the planter. I thought this would be a good idea rather than just sitting it on the floor. I should note here - if you transplanting any plant, do it when the soil in the container you are transferring from is dry. Otherwise you are in for a huge mess.
Here is our planter, cleaned out and ready to have our beautiful Areca Palm planted permanently.
We started with a bag of pea pebbles. Since I decided not to use the drainage hole in the bottom of the planter, it is important to give the water somewhere to go rather than just sitting in the planting soil. As the water passes through the soil, the roots will grab what they need immediately and the rest will filter down to the bottom of the planter where it will create a humid environment for the soil but will not keep the soil like a bog.
I set the original pot back in the planter on top of the pea pebbles to get an idea of how this was going to work and to see if I needed to remove any of the pebbles. The top of the original pot was level with the top of the planter, so I did not remove any of the pebbles. This will give us a good base for proper drainage in the planter so we do not end up with root rot.
I removed the original pot and set the root ball on top of the pebbles in the new planter. Since the soil was dry, the root ball slipped right out of the pot with no, or very little effort. I used my hand to loosen the soil.
Then I used two bags of this Cactus, Palm & Citrus potting mix from Miracl-Gro to fill the rest of the planter.
Once the planter was sufficiently filled with potting mix, I gave it a good, soaking drink. A good drink of water will be the best thing for it since there is some shock to any plant when you transfer it from one pot to another. The other good thing about this planter is that it is nice and large which will allow for expansion of the roots.
I thought some Spanish Moss would like particularly nice on top of the soil as a pot topper. This always add a nice look for very little investment of money.
I used three bags of Spanish Moss in this planter. One bag would have looked too sparse. I might have been able to get away with two bags, but in the end, I really liked the look with all three bags.
Over time, this will settle down with each watering and become more a part of the whole planting.
I was very pleased with the end result. You can see in the picture about that I did some trimming of the palm. It suffered somewhat during the dry, winter months, but there is new growth which should open in the next few weeks. When winter arrives this year I will use a room humidifier to keep the humidity levels up inside the apartment. Palms need humidity, otherwise the fronds will brown on the tips.
I hope this tutorial has been helpful if you are considering transplanting any of your houseplants.
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