Hello everyone Kevin from Mycordining here. We're back. We are in the garden and we are answering your questions.

Today's question is about air pruning. So what does that mean? It sounds like a weird funky term and if you have never done it before it seems like it's very complex but actually it's not.

Air pruning is a simple way to control the root structure of a plant.

If you grow in containers a lot, a lot of the times your plants can get root bound or roots can grow uneven or they can overgrow and

air pruning is one way that you can combat those problems.

So in nature, a roots basically grow wherever they want.

The soil is effectively limitless in most situations and they can keep growing and growing and

growing. But if you're growing in a container, of course,

there is a border to where a plant's roots can go. So what will happen is that the roots will

end up butting up against that wall,

whether it be a clay pot or a plastic pot, whatever you're growing in,

and they'll end up growing along the wall, which will create a root-bound spiral, typically at the bottom,

and in really bad cases, basically creating a root structure that mimics the shape of the pot.

What will happen is roots will grow thick, they'll grow intertwined,

and eventually drainage, nutrient, water access, all of that stuff goes down the drain.

Now, when it comes to air pruning, what that will do is it will stop the growth of the root at the wall of the container

So instead of wrapping around the wall what it will do is it will continue to send out shoots along the length,

which creates a much more dispersed root structure

instead of a bald up, knotted up, overgrown root structure.

So one of the ways that you can accomplish

air pruning in a pot is to use something called an air pot.

There's a bunch of different types of these you can even make your own, but the basic

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