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Attempt to separate these 3 orange habs?

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openfire

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I stumbled across this forum many months ago and got I hooked!

Anyway, I planted some seeds from an Orange Hab back in January and I now have a few pots that have 2 or 3 seedlings in each. My best looking specimens right now all reside in the same pot. So, here is my question:

Should I attempt to separate these 3 plants and pot them up individually, or should I just cut 2 of them and pot up the largest one. Or, could I just keep the 3 intact and plant it into 1 big pot and let them grow together?

Here's the plants:

The cat loves to search and destroy all my plants. I let him close to the plants for this pic for scale:

orangehabcat.jpg


Here is a pic of the base of the 3 plants:

3orangehab.jpg


So what do the experts here recommend?

Thanks!
 
Hi Openfire - welcome to the forum!!

You'll get mixed responses on what to do.. i think its up to you really... I separated two Scotch Bonnets that were in the same pot and all tangled together... they did survive but arent doing as well as the one that didnt get separated.. you should probaby try to separate or kill off the weaker ones... I'm by no means an expert though, only started growing this year.. so listen to the other guys that post - they know what they're doing!
 
^ I agree; it's up to you. They can certainly be separated and planted in individual pots though. They will very likely go into shock so don't put them in direct sun light or an intense grow light until they are showing signs of coming out of shock (leaves looking perky, not drooping).
 
That all depends on how many plants you have and how many do you want? You say that your best looking specimens are those 3 in the pot...so; as a few others have said...it's really up to you. But...the longer you wait to try and seperate them the harder it will be. If you have more than a couple I would kill off the weaker two, if you have only a few I might try and seperate them by ever so gingerly teasing apart the roots. Good luck!
 
Gently pull out and separate the weaker two for transplant. Leave the strongest one as undisturbed as possible. If the transplants die, you've lost nothing IMO. You have to either separate or kill the weaker two, only options. Better to have one live strong than none.
 
They all look good so just for fun I'd leave them all together and put them in the largest pot I've got, which in my case is a 6 gallon bucket.
 
bigt said:
Gently pull out and separate the weaker two for transplant. Leave the strongest one as undisturbed as possible. If the transplants die, you've lost nothing IMO. You have to either separate or kill the weaker two, only options. Better to have one live strong than none.
Click to expand...

+1
 
I think you will have trouble seperating them at this stage. They are pretty big at this point and the roots are probably getting pretty tangled in that small pot. If you are not careful you could end up stunting all three of them. I recommend keeping the strongest and culling the other 2, but if you want to keep them, be as careful as possible with the roots. Before you make a decision, check to see exactly how much root growth there is down there. If it is as dense as I think it will be, the decision will be easier to make.

Good luck!
jacob
 
Yeah, I think you're messing with Siamese twins here, or in this case triplets. I'd personally leave them and put them in a very large container, but they're still gonna fight for water and nutrients etc... but IMO I'd rather have the plants alive then accidentally kill them trying to separate.
 
Straticus said:
they're still gonna fight for water and nutrients etc...
Click to expand...

Light would be my biggest concern since we control the water and nutes.

Would you really get less pods from 3 plants in a container than you would from a single plant?
 
bigt said:
Gently pull out and separate the weaker two for transplant. Leave the strongest one as undisturbed as possible. If the transplants die, you've lost nothing IMO. You have to either separate or kill the weaker two, only options. Better to have one live strong than none.
Click to expand...

+2, but personally in the future I wouldn't recommend starting more than one plant per cell or pot, and growing more than one plant per pot never seems to produce nearly as well as having just a single plant
 
Duffman said:
They all look good so just for fun I'd leave them all together and put them in the largest pot I've got, which in my case is a 6 gallon bucket.
Click to expand...

+1 ..... But if you do seperate and they die, you can buy them at walmart. It's not like they are 7 pod douglahs or yellow scorpions.
 
I also think you should leave them together and just give them a big pot. Let them sort themselves out but at least the roots will have room in the big pot.
 
Yeah, leave them together and put them in a HUGE pot, like 5-7 gallon, or bigger. You can get the fake Teracotta (plastic ones) planters that will hold like 10 gallons of dirt, I would think that would be more than enough, but its gonna be heavy to move if you have to. Potting up not would be a good thing, since I am sure you have a pretty good root ball there and they are a little strangled.
 
Here's an idea. Seperate one plant and leave two together. My money would definitely be on the single plant outperforming the double
 
Your best bet is to pick the healthiest and cut the smaller 2. If you decide to go the other route, separate them using water to wash away the soil and gently separate them then. Speaking of soil, the surface of your soil looks like it has some built up minerals / salts. You may want to flush the soil a few times with water, repeating until it comes out clear. Just a thought.
 
Considering how I hacked and slashed the roots on a few of my plants earlier this year I say cut them apart and don't worry. I even cut the root ball back to the size of a golf ball then shook the hell out of it to get the soil off of it. Plopped it in some fresh soil and away it went. It's actually performing way better than the ones I didn't cut back and has even put out a few peppers despite being under standard 4' fluro's.
 
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