For most of your plants the answer is no, with a few real exceptions. Set a small jade plant in a snug pot next to a fast-growing fern in the same size, and you see the gap right away. The jade holds firm and keeps its color. The fern wilts and stalls. That contrast sums up the root bound benefits debate for you. A tight pot helps a small handful of plants, and it quietly hurts the rest of what you grow.
The plants that like tight pots tend to be slow, tough, and built for dry spells. Many of your succulents fall here, since they store their own water and want to stay dry between drinks. Some free-blooming flowering plants, like peace lilies and certain orchids, push out more flowers when you keep their roots snug. Bonsai are the clearest case you can point to. Growers keep them in tiny trays on purpose to hold the tree small and shape it over years.
For the rest of your collection, a packed root ball works against you. The roots crowd out the soil that should hold water and food. With less soil left in the pot, you have less room to store moisture, so the plant runs dry fast. Garden experts at the University of Georgia note the same thing. They warn that small pots dry out faster, and a root-clogged pot acts even smaller than its real size. So you end up watering far more than you should just to keep the plant alive.
That water problem feeds a growth problem you will notice fast. A plant that dries out between every watering spends its energy staying alive, not getting bigger. You water on Monday and the soil feels bone dry by Wednesday. The leaves droop a few hours after you give them a drink. New growth slows to a crawl or stops on you. Fast growers suffer the most here, because they need steady water and food to keep their pace, and a tight pot just cannot supply it.
So judge the pot by the plant you put in it. Match a slow, drought-tough species with a snug home, and you may see steady health or even more flowers. Pair a thirsty fast grower with that same pot, and you starve it. The real root bound benefits only show up with the right species, so let the plant type set your rule, not a blanket yes or no. When you are unsure, lean toward giving the roots more room, since few plants ever complain about a little extra soil to drink from. Check the tag your plant came with, since it often tells you how fast the species grows and how snug it likes to sit.
You should also know when a snug pot has gone too far. Watch for two clear signals that crowded roots have crossed into a problem. The first is stalled growth, when a plant that should fill out just sits still through its growing season. The second is drought stress that hits too fast, with droopy leaves and dry soil a day or two after you water.
See either sign and you should move the plant up one pot size. Make sure you bump it into a container only an inch or two wider, since too big a jump leaves wet soil the roots cannot reach. Refresh the soil around the root ball as you go, and tease apart any roots that circle the bottom. Try to do this at the start of the growing season, when your plant has the most energy to push out new roots into the fresh soil. Do that and most plants bounce back for you within a few weeks, with fresh leaves and steady new growth to show the move worked. The exception stays the same. If you keep a succulent or a bonsai, leave the snug pot alone and let it do its job.
Read the full article: Root Bound Plants: Signs, Fixes, and Care
