How do I move a really heavy pot on my own?

Compost weighs roughly a kilogram per litre when wet, so a 60 litre planter is 60kg of compost before you add the pot and the plant. Most container gardening injuries are backs and fingers, and almost all of them come from someone trying to pick up something that should have been slid.

Safety

Step by step

1. Make it lighter before you touch it.Do not water for a couple of days, or water lightly and let it drain overnight. A soaked 50 litre pot can be 15kg heavier than the same pot at normal moisture. Never move a pot immediately after watering.
2. Clear and prepare the route first.Sweep it, remove steps from the equation if you can, and know exactly where the pot is going to land. Half the damage happens because someone runs out of strength in a doorway.
3. Walk a round pot on its base.Tilt it slightly and rotate it a few degrees on the edge of its base, then tilt the other way and rotate again — the same movement used to move a washing machine. It is slow but it needs no equipment and no lifting.
4. Slide it on a low-friction sheet.Get one edge up on a piece of hardboard, an old rug turned pile-down, a heavy bin liner or a proper furniture slider, then pull rather than push. On smooth paving this moves an enormous weight with modest effort.
5. Roll it on pipes for a long, flat run.Lay a scaffold board and put two or three lengths of 40mm plastic waste pipe under it as rollers, moving the rearmost pipe to the front as you go. This is how a single person moves several hundred kilograms across a patio.
6. Use a pot trolley or a sack truck for anything repeated.A wheeled pot mover that lives permanently under the pot is the right answer for anything that comes in and out for winter. Check its stated load rating — cheap ones fail at well under the weight of a large planter.
7. If none of that works, empty it in place.Take the plant out, barrow the compost to the new location, move the empty pot, and replant. This is almost always faster than it sounds and is the only sensible option on steps or a slope.

Tips

• Two webbing straps or a length of hosepipe under the base, with a person on each end and a broom handle through the loops, turns an impossible two-person lift into a manageable one.
• Never take a heavy pot up or down steps on a sack truck alone. On steps, empty it.
• Fit the pot trolley before you plant, not after. Getting a trolley under a full 80cm planter is a job in itself.

Common mistakes

• Lifting by the rim — The rim is the weakest part of most pots and it is carrying the whole weight through a narrow ring. Rims snap off, the pot drops on your feet, and terracotta shatters.
• Watering, then moving — You have just added the maximum possible weight. Wet compost is also more likely to slump and shift, which makes the load unstable mid-move.
• Dragging a terracotta pot across paving — It grinds the base away and starts a crack. Always get something under it — even a folded sack is enough.

Questions people ask