There’s a particular Sunday I have every year, somewhere in the last stretch of August, when I bring every houseplant on the windowsill down onto the kitchen table and just look at them. Not water them, not move them to a sunnier spot — just look, properly, the way you’d check on an old friend after a long summer. It’s usually then that I notice the geranium that’s stopped flowering, the herb pot with roots pushing out of the drainage hole, the fern that’s gone from lush to merely surviving. August is when a summer of steady growth catches up with a pot that was never quite big enough, and the plant starts quietly asking for more room before the low light of autumn arrives.
Repotting before autumn matters more than most people think. Once the days shorten and growth slows, a plant in a cramped pot goes into winter already stressed, with no reserve of fresh soil or root space to draw on. Do the work now, while there’s still warmth and light to help the roots settle, and you give every houseplant its best possible start on the darker months ahead.
The signs a pot has become too small
A few tells are easy to miss if you’re not looking for them. Roots circling the surface of the soil or emerging from the drainage hole are the clearest sign. So is a plant that needs watering far more often than it used to — a solid mass of roots leaves little actual soil to hold moisture. Slowed or stalled growth, despite a full season of decent light, is another quiet signal. And if you lift the plant and the rootball holds its shape perfectly, dense and pale and tangled, with barely any soil visible at all, it’s well past time.
Choosing the right size — and the right material
The instinct is to go big, but a pot only two to three centimetres wider in diameter than the current one is usually the right move. Too much extra soil around a smaller rootball holds water the roots can’t use, and that’s a fast route to rot. Terracotta is worth the small extra cost over plastic for anything that dislikes sitting wet — it’s porous, so it lets excess moisture evaporate through the walls rather than pooling at the base, which suits Mediterranean herbs and most houseplants beautifully. For thirstier plants like ferns, a glazed ceramic pot that holds moisture a little longer can be the better fit.
The repotting itself
Water the plant an hour or so beforehand — a well-hydrated rootball slides out far more easily and suffers less disturbance. Turn the pot on its side and ease the plant out by the base of the stems, never by pulling on the foliage. Gently loosen the outer roots with your fingers if they’ve become tightly wound; a light tease encourages them to grow outward into the new soil rather than continuing to circle. Add a layer of fresh potting mix to the base of the new pot, position the plant so the soil line sits roughly where it did before, then fill in around the sides, firming gently as you go. Water well and let it drain fully before returning the plant to its usual spot, ideally out of harsh direct sun for a week while the roots settle back in.
Bringing a little more of the garden indoors
This is also the moment I like to add one or two new pieces — a small terracotta pot for a rosemary cutting from the garden, or a slightly larger one to finally give a rootbound fern the space it’s been asking for. I keep coming back to the same terracotta, the kind that ages into that soft, chalky patina over a few seasons rather than staying stiff and new-looking forever. I’ve put together my favourites, in the sizes that actually get used, on the Planters & Pots shelf of my English Cottage Living shop, if you’re due a pot upgrade of your own this weekend.
An hour at the kitchen table, a bag of fresh compost, a few pots the right size — it’s a small ritual, but it’s one of those small acts of care that a home quietly thanks you for all winter long.
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