Chive lovers are fortunate in that this sturdy plant can be grown in a variety of conditions, including a pot on the kitchen windowsill. Chives are attractive enough to use as indoor decorative plants — their grassy stalks and pinkish flowers add a variety of colors and textures among other plants. Even people with available garden space may choose to keep their chives potted instead of in the garden.
You can grow pots of chives on a sunny windowsill indoors for year-round use.
If you are starting with young seedlings you have grown yourself, transfer them to a growing mix to give them needed nutrition. Many growers recommend soilless potting mixes for indoor plants. Soilless mixes are usually blends of peat moss (which holds water and provides a fibrous cohesion to mix), vermiculite (puffed mica that retains water well), and perlite (puffed volcanic rock that has properties similar to those of vermiculite). Since chives like their soil pH neutral or slightly acidic (with a pH of 6 to 7), most balanced mixes will work fine; you needn’t adjust them with other ingredients.
Select a plant pot that is the right size for the chive clump you plan to transplant. If you have a seedling cluster 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter, for instance, a 4-inch (10 cm) pot is a good size to move this cluster into.
The type of growing container is up to you. Clay pots are classics and look beautiful lined up on a windowsill, but they dry out quickly, so you will need to water the plants they contain more often. Plastic pots are much cheaper and come in a greater variety of shapes. Specialty pots designed for indoor gardens are fine, too. The main concern is that every pot needs to have a drainage hole in its bottom. You will also want some kind of tray or saucer to set the pot on, to catch excess water.
Step 1. Scoop a layer of soil into the pot. The layer should be deep enough that when you set your plant’s rootball on it, the top of the rootball will be at the level you want to top of your plant to be, about ½ inch (13 mm) from the top of the pot.
Step 2. Set the plant in the pot. Fill in the edges of the pot with more clean soil and press lightly to make the top uniformly level with the plant. Place the pot on its drainage tray and water thoroughly.
If you’re transplanting a seedling to a pot, wait until it has grown to at least 2 inches (5 cm) in height. Handle it very gently as you fill around its root structure with soil.
Rootbound (or potbound) means that a plant has outgrown its container and its roots have made an extensive network around the inside of the pot. Commonly, rootbound plants send little shoots of roots out of the drainage holes at the bottom of the pot. Also, if you tip a rootbound plant out of its pot you will see a lot of roots, while a well-potted plant will display just soil and a few roots at the bottom. If you have an older, rootbound plant, it should be either moved to a larger pot or divided into a couple of smaller plants.
Decide whether you want to divide the plant or upgrade its pot. How big a pot of chives do you want taking up your precious window space? If you have a 6-inch (15 cm) pot of chives, do you really want it to grow to 8 inches (20 cm)? Do you have the room for it? Do you need that many chives?
If you do want more chives, move your clump into a pot the next size up, about 1 to 2 inches (3–5 cm) larger. Prepare the pot as for a new seedling, with fresh, damp growing mix in the bottom; the mix should be at a higher level than the soil in the original pot because you’re going to get rid of some of the old, tired soil from the plant’s roots before moving the plant into its new home.
The process is easy. Just follow these steps:
Step 1. Prepare a bowl of room-temperature water.
Step 2. Pop the plant out of its pot into your hand. Hold the plant so the growth is nestled in the crook of your thumb; the top of the potting soil from the pot should rest on your palm. Be very gentle with the chive stalks, holding them right where they meet the soil. Hold your other hand over the base of the dirt- and rootball, making a cage with both your hands.
Step 3. Lower the roots into the water and gently agitate from side to side to loosen the dirt from the outer roots.
Step 4. When about half the soil is gone or the cluster begins to feel loose, as if the plants are about to separate, lift the cluster from the water and place it in the prepared pot, keeping your hold on the chive stalks where they emerge from the soil.
Step 5. With your other hand, spread the roots out gently over the prepared soil, adding more if you need to so that the plant will settle at the right level.
Step 6. Gently ease the individual plants loose from the cluster, sprinkling potting mix to fill in the spaces.
Step 7. Scoop in enough soil to stabilize the plant, tapping the pot on your work surface from time to time to settle the soil and make room for more. When the pot is filled to the brim, pat down the soil, then water thoroughly.
If you are going to divide your chives, prepare a new pot for the removed portion. Remove the plant from old pot, gently working off the portion of chives you want to keep in your original pot (half is a good proportion to keep). Wash the roots of each cluster and plant as directed above.
Perennial plants like chives are accustomed to a seasonal cycle of growth, bloom, and dormancy. Keeping plants inside year-round disrupts that cycle and can result in a plant that simply stops growing new leaves and begins to wither, looking scraggly and anemic.
This change can also be a sign that the plant is rootbound. Soil depleted of nutrients can’t support good growth, and roots jammed into a knot can’t supply the nutrition and air the plant needs. Check the roots by tipping the plant out of the pot into your hand. If your chives are indeed rootbound, repot as just described.
If the chives don’t seem to be rootbound, set the plant back in its pot and try applying some fertilizer, following the package directions. If the added nutrients don’t seem to help, your chives could be tired of waiting for winter and in need of a rest. Let the soil dry out, cut the chives to about 2 inches (5 cm) high, and place the pot in a brown paper bag in the refrigerator or freezer for a couple of weeks without watering. Then allow the plant to return to room temperature and give it a small amount of water; watch for new growth. If you don’t see a glimpse of fresh green in 4 or 5 days, return the pot to the fridge for another 2 weeks and try again. If all else fails, give up and get a new plant. Tired old plants can die even under the care of the greenest-thumbed gardeners.