Thats the exact opposite of what you should do during repot. If youre cleaning the rootball from soil some damage is inevitable, but to do it intentionally is another thing. Roots are the achilles' heel for nearly all succulents.....

i see... thanks for your advice!

Ying,

Why would you wish to remove its roots? That would harm the plant & sounds like a bad idea. What does a 'cleaner transplant' mean?

I was thinking of changing the potting medium from soil to gritty mix, so was wondering if i could do a better job in cleaning out the roots before planting it into gritty mix.

I am also curious how succulents can be sold de-rooted (saw many sellers with it) and thought i could do the same when repotting my plants..

Ahh okay, seems like there's alot more for me to learn about succulents..

Thanks for your help and advice!!

Cleaning out old soil from existing roots is entirely different from removing the roots themselves. An important distinction. It sets the plant back considerably, essentially making the plant start all new roots.

Maybe Dax is right thinking it's a propagation method, it's NOT a regular growing method, sorry.

Bigger the roots, the bigger the shoots.

They grow better when you do, and easier to work with. I always plant the tops.

Sorry Matt, I doubt that.

It's ok LOL it works great. They take up less room and it stresses them nicely. Haven't lost one plant yet. I learned it from a succulent company in Southern California. The few that keep the roots get trimmed back heavily.

Name one of those plants. I strongly disagree.

Again Matt, sounds like a propagation method as suggested above. Pls don't suggest this as a regular growing method as it's likely to cause lots of problems. Unless you're personally able to hang around here to correct all the trouble this method will cause Newbies, I ask you to pls stop suggesting this.

They will unknowingly water their rootless tops & end up w/ mush for plants, & have you to thank for it, so pls. stop advocating this method.

@YW Going back to removing the roots. Yes it is very much possible. As you can see people are opposed to it. If you choose this method do not water until you see new growth. To show you, this is 6 months in the same pot by removing the roots when it got pot bound.

March

Sept

Its not even the same plant.........

What makes you think they're different plants, Stefan? Just curious! :O

It sure is...

Leaf width and ridges.

Come on Dax, texture, edges, overall shape, one much more toothy than the other.

I've just seen some really drastic transformations in plants before due to lighting changes and other factors, so I wanted to hear what you guys saw that was different in this. Thanks! :)

You guys.....

The main reason for root removal is phytosanitation on imported plants. Better to always receive plants with roots than without because the time to recovery is much shorter.

If you want to clean them up, have you tried a hose sprayer? Does a pretty good at cleaning up the root balls of plants.

Plants need to expend resources to grow roots and obtain moisture. The less resources they need to spend on root growth can simply be diverted into foliage instead, which is what most growers are looking for.

OP, as ewwmayo said the sellers who remove "roots" to ship are actually just removing all soil for import regulations. If you are repotting in order to give the plant better soil you should do so with the plant very dry before you start. I gently slide my plant out of the first pot and allow the soil/rootball to dry completely, then I use my fingers to gently comb through to remove all the soil I can, shaking, pulling, all gently. Then I put it in the new mix/pot and wait about 7-12 days before I water, then water once and wait another 10 days. Those numbers of days are for my mild summers. During cooler wet winter it will take longer to dry and wait longer to water. Hope that helps.