Get out while you still can!

Note to rootbound plants: Get out while you still can!

I planted dozens of seeds in little plastic containers, wanting a head start on the short growing season in my region.

The weather warmed up but I got busy. The seedlings outgrew their tiny containers and were silently begging to be placed in the spacious garden where their roots could dig down deep. Instead, the roots grew the only way they could in their rigid pots – in circles.

The day finally came when I had time to transplant these precious seedlings into the garden. They had already looked wan and peaked, but surely, I thought, they would be fine in the garden. I had so much hope, but to my sorrow, every one of them died within days. I remembered how lively and promising they had looked those first days of breaking through the soil.

With no way for the circular roots to quickly retrain and move into the surrounding dirt of the garden bed, my plants gave up and faded away. Had I been an experienced gardener, perhaps I could have worked with the root ball, done some corrective root pruning, and sent them on their healthy way. Alas.

I made a mental note to myself. If ever the circumstance is such that I am like a vigorous new plant trapped in a too-small and unyielding pot, running in circles for lack of latitude and destined for stunted growth, I need to make immediate exit plans if I want to survive.