Why loosen the soil when growing flowers in pots? It's like loosening your belt after eating too much

Some people have a habit of loosening their belt when they've eaten too much, just to feel a bit more comfortable, and growing flowers is the same. Using the wrong soil for plants easily causes compaction, which is bad for watering and fertilizing, so when it's not yet time to repot, you have to loosen the soil!

Especially when using large pots, we often use some old soil mixed with garden soil, and soil like this tends to compact slightly after being used for a long time, to the point where even a small stick won't go in easily. In an environment like this, the plant roots can't breathe well and can't absorb nutrients well either, so loosening the soil is a must.

Loosening the soil also takes skill; done badly, it can hurt the plant, so come learn. First use a small bamboo stick to pry the soil loose along the inner edge of the pot, prying up only a thin top layer, and don't poke the roots.

Once the top part is loosened, move to the inside: cup the outside of the pot with both hands and gently pat the outer wall a few times until the surface soil in the pot looks loose and even, and this way the soil next to the inner wall will loosen too.

With the two methods above, the potting soil is mostly loosened quite a bit, but the situation at the bottom hasn't improved. At this point, use a hard wooden stick or rod, insert it along the inner wall of the pot down to the bottom, and then carefully loosen the soil; you can also use a specialized soil-loosening tool, but in every case be careful not to hurt the plant roots.

After loosening the soil, you may find that to water thoroughly you need more water than before, and that is the effect of loosening the soil. Previously, when the soil was compacted, water couldn't soak in and just ran down the rim of the pot or through gaps to the bottom, so it never got watered through at all.

So in everyday care, if you want to avoid this hassle, there are two approaches. First, use a specialized nutrient soil; these are mostly lightweight and granular, and rarely compact.

Second, after mixing garden soil or old soil for potting, be careful not to give half-hearted watering, and water with an organic nutrient solution that activates and loosens the soil; the organic matter factors in it can improve the soil environment, and compaction will naturally be reduced.

When caring for your plants, try not to use garden soil directly, and also pay attention to the details of everyday watering; these are the causes of soil compaction. Growing flowers requires loosening the soil, and when it's time to repot, repot, so the plants can grow well.