You could root prune a spider plant with a weed whacker and it would be fine afterwards. Start with those if you're feeling nervous, or have specific worries about being too rough with exposed roots. The steps as I understand it are: Remove plant from pot There's often another step after this, which is 'chop off the base of the pot-shaped rootball'. It's sadly common that you'll see lots of circling roots around the bottom of the pot, and there are several reasons to carve the rootball like a turkey before you do anything else at all. 1. You're quite likely to damage them if you try and untangle them, and then you'll just have to remove them anyway. 2. The thick, relatively unbranching roots are the ones that ferry collected nutrients to the top part of the plant. They don't do much collection themselves, and the woody ones don't do any. In a pot, all they do is take up space. 3. They get in the way when you're trying to take the rest of the soil off, especially if they're woody and have woody corners. 4. They get in the way when you're trying to repot, especially if they're woody and have woody corners. Overall it's a lot of effort for very little return, and takes time you might not have. It's less traumatic all round to lop them off and be done with it. If the plant isn't pot-bound, great. Straight onto the next step. Remove as much of old dirt as possible For this you can use a root rake, a chopstick, a jet of water, or your fingers. Whatever you use, take care not to scratch the skin on the roots. Some species tolerate that more than others, but no species likes it. Cut off dead roots, roots growing in a circle around the pot You can do this as part of the previous step. As you're taking the soil off, remove roots that are circling, dead, heavily damaged, or just plain long. These long roots are more trouble than they're worth, being hard to keep undamaged and requiring their own special space in the new pot. You can also cut off old woody roots that are getting in your way, if they don't have many fine roots at the end. You may need to take off a swathe of old roots near the base anyway, so you can get all the soil out of the very centre of the root ball. You may also need to take off another layer of bound roots, if the plant was previously potted up while rootbound. Cut a slit in the corner of this new rootball, going directly through the bundle of roots, and make as many cuts as you need to get access to the interior of the old pot. Once you're done with that, tidy the roots up. Take off root sections that have a single deep wound / multiple scratches, have ends that curve upwards or back towards the plant, have no fine roots branching off near the end (NB: change where the end is; don't cut the whole root at the base!), or cross over other roots. While it's best to correct all of these problems, at this point you may not have many fine roots left. Take the worst offenders, or the ones that are crowding more desirable roots, or the ones with lots of mass but hardly any fine roots, and leave the rest for next year. Cut wedges out of the root ball (this is the one that makes me really nervous) Not always necessary, and redundant if you're bare-rooting. Bare-rooting (and the subsequent pruning) creates space for new, fine roots by removing unwanted roots and sections of unwanted roots while leaving as much fine rootage as possible. Wedges create space for new roots by bulldozing an area of the existing root system, from the thickest roots down to the thinnest and without regard for whether or not those roots are entirely inside the wedge taken. That's not to say wedges are bad -- while the effect on the worked area is... dramatic, the rest of the roots are left undisturbed. Add gritty or 5-1-1 mix to new similar-sized new pot, or well-cleaned old pot Settle plant in new pot, water thoroughly Do not fertilize for awhile (not sure how long) Fertilise when you start seeing new growth. That means the plant is taking up enough water to do more than keep itself turgid, and you can start making osmosis a little less easy by adding fertiliser salts. How long does that take? Depends on the current health of the plant, the potential vigour of the plant, the time of year, and the conditions the plant is exposed to after being repotted.

Yours is still one of the most romantic and beautiful gardens, Florence. Thanks for the lovely pictures of your big, beautiful roses. Ingrid

Guess I wasn't paying attention back in January!! Wish I hadn't miss this, but I'm glad it got bumped. Beautiful! I just posted my refresh too....nice to see another kitchen with a good starting point!! The soapstone gives it such a warm feel. I know you're loving it!

These remind me of those Llyod smokin hot "compost mountain" photos.