Carrying your plants carefully
By Satish Narula

THIS must have happened to you if you visit a far-off place. You see an attractive plant and want it to be a part of your prized collection. You also know you would not get another opportunity to come across such a specimen.

The usual problem is how is one going to carry this bulk? Do not get disheartened. The next time that you face any such situation, get rid of the bulk — the soil, and adopt certain tips.

Depending upon the season and the kind of the plant you intend to carry there are different ways of doing it. In winters, the deciduous plants, (the ones that shed their leaves, and go dormant) could be carried without the earth-ball. Such plants are peach, plum, pear, mulberry, anar, almond, fig and grapes. Remember, such plants are planted only once a year, at a time when they are dormant.

Do not venture to carry these plants at any other time of the year. You will lose both money and enthusiasm. When dormant, you could carry even a hundred plants in a small bundle.

In winter you can also plant certain evergreen fruits such as ber, and citrus species (amla etc) bare-rooted. The horticulturists of the PAU, Ludhiana, advocate carrying such plants by defoliation and pruning their roots and shoots to maintain a proper ratio.

Roots are protected by wrapping them in some moist media. In the case of roses, most plants are brought from distant places. The ones you get in local nurseries are mostly procured from Uttar Pradesh or Calcutta and support a heavy soil.

Such plants’ support reveals the treatment their roots get at the hands of such nurserymen. Almost all the feeders are cut or damaged, thus shortening the life of the plants.

In case you visit some nursery at the source where such plants are prepared, insist upon extracting the plants with all the roots. Remove the earth-ball by striking the roots on the ground. Cover the bare roots with wet straw or sphagnum moss (moss grass) and wrap it in a small piece of gunny bag and then plastic. You could even completely cover or wrap the plant. Prune the shoots as you do at the time of pruning the plant.

You can carry a number of plants this way for any distance. Do not forget to cover the wounds with blitox slurry.

In case of indoor plants too the principle is the same — protecting the plants against drying. But there are some other considerations too. Indoor plants are valued for their foliage.

Any damage to the foliage affects the appeal of the plant.In certain cases where the plants have rhizomatus or tuberous roots, you can reduce the foliage considerably. It will reappear from the base after you do the replanting.

The soil in such cases could also be left behind. Many such plants could be wrapped together as explained before. In case of other specimens where it is not possible to remove the twigs en masse, remove only those that are unnecessary.

This, you can easily do if you can anticipate the future growth pattern or the shape the plant will take after clipping. Do not forget to carry small cuttings that you removed from your plant in a small bundle. You can, by propagation use them multiplying your plant.

The indoor plants carried in this fashion, need special handling as they are delicate. Check for any dried portion and remove at once with a little healthy portion of the twig on arrival.

Dip the whole plant in bavistin solution for about half-an-hour, prepared by dissolving it in one gram to a litre of water. Then do repotting. Keep the pot at some place for the first few days. Do not water it over much.

When you intend to bring the plant from a distant place, mark it in the nursery during your stay. Get them extracted and packed only on the day of your departure. In case of the deciduous fruit plants make sure there are no tumours on the roots. Reject such plants as they are either diseased or nemtode-affected.

This feature was published on January 31, 1998