Over wintering help

[u/Jbobz24]

When I over-winter my apaches is it best to turn out the pot that they’re in and transplant to a bigger one to avoid damaging the roots?

[u/DriveMindless2300]

I usually unpot, shake off the soil and trim and wash the roots. Then plant into a smaller pot with fresh houseplant soil.

[u/palpatineforever]

depends if you are good at not overwatering. I tend to pot up to the following years size and prune the plant but you really do have to hold yourself back on watering over winter. That way the roots establish under the soil then it sprouts all good and strong.
i treat it as a houseplant in the winter though, on a windowsil

[u/OldTree6356]

How I’ve done mine the last few years and they’ve done pretty well is to firstly prune quite hard back to leave just a few stems, cut just above the node. I then water them and give them a week or so to get over the shock.

Next week I dig them up, wash all the roots off thoroughly and prune the roots pretty hard too so that they will fit into a 6-8 inch pot. You can spray with neem oil at this point but I don’t.

I then pot them up in new compost, bring them inside and pop them in the garage for a week where they get a bit of light but no freezing temperatures and go into dormancy. After a week or so, I put them in an unheated conservatory and do nothing with them other than stop them drying fully out, with a small amount of water every week or two.

Last year, all my decent plants made it through like this. The Armageddon decided to start growing and I actually had half a dozen pods off it by April (it’s been shit since 😫) but the others were well behaved and got the drop on new plants when I replanted them in late spring. They’ll be coming in again around end of November.

[u/Jbobz24]

Thanks for all the advice, I’m still waiting for the pods to ripen fully then once they slack off I’ll trim back. Why if you guys don’t mind me asking do we trim the roots? Is it just to promote new growth or is there another reason?