Say you buy an annual or small perennial you want to bareroot for planting in 5-1-1 or Gritty. You pull it out of the pot and it has the typical soggy mass of bound roots intermingled with crappy MG soil.

Do you just leave as is and pot into the mix (and bareroot it later once the root mass has grown/strengthened) - or- try to bareroot it from the get-go?

I ask because I destroyed two such plant root systems trying to be as delicate as possible with the hose nozzle in spraying away the soil off the roots. The little roots just kind of dissolved or blasted away, leaving essentially no base to keep the plants upright. I made sure to soak the root balls for a while first.

Feeling bad about the waste of money and plantlife, I'm inclined to plant the small delicate store-boughts with their root masses intact except for a little teasing/scoring. I'm good with barerooting larger/stronger root masses --- just need planting tips with the tiny delicate ones. Thanks.