are you allowed to?

hortriot

hi,

as far as i know you are allowed to pop a plant out of a pot in a nursery, this is of course in common retail nurseries not bonsai nurseries.

i saw this on a gardening tv show when i was a little tacker and have stuck to it ever since. i have always been careful and respectful of the proprietor and their stock, and have never had any problems.

the theory behind it is to inspect the stock thoroughly. looks good upstairs, how do the roots look?

its always best to just ask the nursery person for assistance as your chosen plant may be large in price tag or size, you don't want to pay for an accident or be banned from your favourite nursery.

is this a universal rule, has anybody else come across it or did tv lie to me?

please tell

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Misspeled_Name

When I go to buy new stock I always pull the tree out of it's pot to check the roots. I have got some weird looks thats about it lol.

- Misspeled_Name

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JR_Roosa

I play it by ear.

If it's inexpensive (and if I'm the one shopping, then it is), I'm more concerned with making a mess than with hurting the tree. I get a feel for how stuck in the pot it is and how loose the soil is. If it feels like it's just been repotted or like it's going to spill soil all over the place, I ask for help or try to get a good peek at the roots by looking down along the side, by digging around with a finger, or by looking though big drain holes if there are any. 9 times out of ten, it's got roots all around to hold the soil together (unfortunately) and it pops out without trouble. If it starts to leave half the soil behind in the pot, then I know there's probably nothing to see but dirt anyway.

I also only check the roots on stock that I really like the top on so that I'm not pulling out more than a couple of trees at a visit.

Also, I think that anybody who works in a nursery knows what I'm up to (and will ask me if I need help out of sheer customer service), and the only funny looks come from other customers, who would give me really funny looks if they knew what I was planning to do to the tree.

I have never had anyone at a nursery ask me not to pull stock out of pots, but if they did, I would apologize profusely and probably not shop there anymore. That's like the car dealer asking you not to look under the hood because opening and closing the hood might hurt the car. Hey, it's his car and his lot, but it's my money.

-J.

onlyrey

In my short very short experience, I find that those nurseries (not bonsai nurseries) that are careful about repotting trees "on time" never have the best bonsai stock. The few best things I've found are rootbound and stuck in some corner where the repotting day never comes. The ontime repotted plants are ussually small for the pot size and thus more expensive.

malhomme

I heartily agree, but I still like to see what I have ahead of me when I repot it. --Jim

Repotter

I will pull a tree out of its pot to show a customer the roots of a tree they may be interested in.
In fact I prefer a customer to see what the roots look like before buying the tree. Customers often ask for help with how and what to do with the roots on a specific type of tree when repotting.

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