Potting up question

Hi all -

I have grown some impatiens and pansies that I want to pot up. I have 4" square pots, however I don't have a ton of room under my grow lights and I'm wondering if I could put more than one plant in each without having to repot before setting out in the garden. The violas are kind of leggy and still quite small but they are a bit leggy so that's why I want to repot. I could put two or three in a pot right now and they would still have lots of room to grow. The impatiens are a bit bigger but I could put two in a pot and they'd be fine. I just don't want to have to repot them again. I'd rather separate the clump before putting into the garden (will this be difficult?) or plant them together, but I just don't know how big they will be by mid May. Both were sown toward the end of February. Any advice would be helpful!

If they're leggy that most likely means they're not getting enough light, so repotting won't help with that. I wonder if your lights are close enough to your seedlings? They should be no more than a couple inches above the tops of the seedlings, any further away than that and they don't you much good.

They are all very close to the lights (under 2") and have been since germinating. I think the problem was that I didn't catch them soon enough after they sprouted - with the humidity and heat mat, those pansies and violas skyrocket up in a matter of hours! The ones that I did catch are nice and stocky.

Here's a pic of what I'm talking about. Most of that stem growth was there from the beginning. At first I was afraid this was damping off, but it's been over a week and the true leaves keep getting bigger and stem is thickening up. It's just that it's all flopped over and sad looking. I was hoping that by potting up and burying some of the stem it would promote more root growth and lead to stockier plants. What do all you experts say?



This message was edited Mar 12, 2009 7:24 AM