Will they be ok???

My partner and I bought a couple of plants today (A young Hebe and Verburnum Tinus) which were reduced by quite a lot. But when we got them home we found they were extremely pot bound, so much so that we couldn't break up the roots before planting them in the ground. So we just loosened the soil a bit and put them in....Was that a bad thing to do??
We both thought that the roots, once in the garden with all the room to move, would just just release them selves and start spreading out. But I'm not so sure now, thinking about it. I just read about planting pot bound plants and it says you should soak them in water first if they are like that.

So, should we dig them up again tomorrow and soak them in a bucket of water??

 

You only need to soak if they were dry.

I know the usual advise these days is to tease out the roots of pot grown plants, but I dont usually bother, roots are pretty good at finding their own way out.

Only thing I would say is, until those roots escape that rootball you need water them as if they were still pot plants, that is, pretty much everyday during dry sunny weather.

 

Oh, thanks pete, will give them a very good water every day as we've got a good few dry, sunny days coming up!