I realized while doing another one of these today that this one sentence covered enough ground for an entire clarifying post. Anyone who’s tried to remove a tree with vigorous roots from a Steuwe deepot has likely damaged a few before figuring out the trick of it.
First, I put my left hand over the top, with the stem between my fingers, and invert the pot (I know, so far pretty obvious):
It’s unlikely that you will feel the roots come loose at this point, but if you do, you can skip the next step.
With my right hand, I gently squeeze the bottom of the pot, and while maintaining a squeezing pressure, slide that hand along the tube toward the other hand (yes, in a vaguely lewd way), basically starting like this first photo, then the second one, and all the way to the other end where your other hand is:
Sometimes this doesn’t work the first time and then I rotate the tube 1/4 of the way and repeat it. It almost always comes loose before I have done that 4 or 5 times.
Once it’s loose, there’s still a risk that the root ball will break off, damaging the roots severely, so to support the weight, I slide the pot off while resting the roots on my left forearm:
Once you have two hands to support them, the tree can usually be lowered into the previously prepared hole without any injury to the roots.
It’s remarkable the amount of growth I’m seeing on avocado seedlings in these pots. This is barely halfway through the first growing season for this tree, it’s already taller above ground than the 14" deepot:
