How to Pot a Mail-Order Osmanthus: A Detailed Guide to the Latest Method
Potted osmanthus is suitable for transplanting and potting in spring and autumn. If you want to see its beauty when it blooms and also enjoy its refreshing fragrance, then why not take advantage of this season to grow a pot of osmanthus at home! If you don't have a suitable osmanthus sapling for potting, then we can also buy a sapling online and pot it. But transplanting a mail-order osmanthus requires mastering certain methods, so what should we do?
The osmanthus seedlings we buy online usually come with soil. Because they still have to go through the transportation process, transplanting with soil often makes it easier to adapt to the pot and survive. But to more easily obtain small seedlings suitable for potting, merchants often use grafting to propagate them, mostly using Chionanthus retusus as the rootstock. If it is a grafted seedling, it is recommended to choose one that has been grafted for several years, so that the rootstock is thicker and has more roots, making it easier to adapt to the pot and survive after potting.
Of course, using Chionanthus retusus as a rootstock for grafting osmanthus also has quite a few advantages, such as better growth after the plant survives and stronger resistance to stress. If transplanted with a soil ball, the survival rate is also relatively high. Merchants generally choose to use garden soil or mud to cultivate grafted osmanthus seedlings, so after you get it, you can see that the soil around the roots is relatively hard, because growing osmanthus purely in mud makes the soil prone to compaction.
Therefore, before potting such an osmanthus seedling, we suggest loosening the relatively compacted soil around its roots. If we pot it directly without loosening the soil, the new roots will find it very difficult to contact the new potting soil, which is not conducive to root growth or to taking root. Because the soil is relatively hard, you should be careful when loosening it to avoid damaging the plant's roots. It is recommended to first soak the roots in water for a period of time to let them fully absorb water, which makes loosening the soil easier.
Osmanthus prefers fertile, loose, breathable, well-draining, slightly acidic sandy soil, so we must not use alkaline soil for potting. Generally, we can use a mixed substrate of garden soil, coarse sand, and leaf mold for potting. But before potting, we also need to prepare a flowerpot of suitable size and depth, and the specifications of the flowerpot should match the size of the selected plant. A flowerpot that is too large, too deep, too small, or too shallow is not conducive to the distribution and growth of the plant's roots.
When potting, first make a drainage layer at the bottom of the pot, then pour in a layer of soil, then place a layer of organic fertilizer, preferably decomposed fertilizer, as a base fertilizer. Of course, we can also evenly scatter a layer of slow-release controlled-release fertilizer into the pot, then cover it with a layer of soil to avoid direct contact between the fertilizer and the osmanthus roots, which could cause fertilizer burn. After potting, promptly water thoroughly once as settling water, and then place it in a cool, ventilated place with scattered light to let it recover. After the plant successfully adapts to the pot and survives, we can then resume normal care and management for it.