More than a month ago I bought some pansies to put in pots out on my porch. I did so, and they have never really taken off. Some of the plants haven’t even produced any blooms.
I decided to cut the losses and try something else in their pots, so I went to start pulling them up and–to my surprise–the plants came right out of the soil with no resistance whatsoever, with their root balls still molded in the shape of the starter containers I bought them in. They’ve been doing poorly because they were so rootbound.
Well, I tried to break up the root balls, spread them out, and put them back in the pot.
My question: is there any hope that they will now recover, put down roots, and start blooming? Or is it likely that they are so traumatized that they’ll just malinger through the summer?