TIL a nursery worker in Omaha saved my dying fern with a 2 minute trick

Last month my fern in the living room started turning yellow and dropping leaves all over the place. I tried watering less, watering more, moving it to different windows, nothing worked for 3 weeks. Finally stopped into a small nursery off Maple Street in Omaha and the guy behind the counter took one look and said "you're drowning it in a too-big pot." He showed me how the soil stayed wet 4 inches down because the pot was way oversized for the root ball. I repotted it into something smaller last Sunday and now there's new green shoots already. Has anyone else had a plant just refuse to perk up until you downsized the pot?

2 comments

2 Comments

rayy8325d ago

oh man, that reminds me of my buddy Dave. He had this pothos that was just miserable for like two months straight, leaves all sad and floppy. He tried everything too, even bought one of those moisture meters. Finally his sister who actually knows plants came over and she was like "dude, this pot is the size of a bucket." He put it in a little 6 inch terracotta pot and within a week it was perking right back up. It's crazy how much we think bigger is better for pots but it just holds too much water and rots the roots out.

max_jones25d ago

Man, that's so true. I did the same thing with a snake plant last year. Threw it in a ceramic pot that was way too big thinking it'd have room to grow, and the thing just sat there looking sad for months. Moved it to a smaller nursery pot with better drainage holes and it perked up in like two weeks. Now I always check if the pot is only like an inch or two bigger than the root ball before repotting. Such a simple fix but easy to overlook.