Water is really amazing – H2O, made up of hydrogen and oxygen, it’s literally responsible for all life on Earth. Watering your plant is a no brainer, but how much and how often can be more tricky to tell. Luckily, we have a few gardening tips and tricks in this episode on watering for optimum plant health. Watering your plants is key to keeping them healthy, apart from a rich soil and good amount of sunlight.
Today, Let’s solve this Frequently Asked Question in Gardening: How much to water plants, and how often to water plants – what should be the frequency of watering? – The answer to this question is not really easy and depends on a number of factors like the Type of plant, your location or the local climatic zone, the season of the year, the type and size of the container and so on..
Now let’s list out the 12 golden rules of watering your house plants, especially applicable to container gardening. You must remember this very important line – OVERWATERING IS THE MOST COMMON PLANT KILLER THAN UNDERWATERING.
Rule 1: Avoid Water Logging and Stagnation – To avoid this, firstly, you need to have a well draining potting soil mix. Your potting mix must contain atleast 30 to 50 percent of stuff other than just garden soil, like compost, peat moss or cocopeat, perlite, vermiculite, sand and stuff like that. You can check the best potting mix formula here. Then secondly, you must check whether the drainage holes of your containers are patent. Water should freely flow out of the holes, else can be a disaster to your plants.
Rule 2: Checking Top Soil for Moisture: Before you water your plant, make it a habit to check the top 1 or 2 inches of soil using the finger dip method. If it’s completely dry then you need to water your plants. You can also check this using a soil moisture meter or a simple moisture and PH testing gadget like this. But the best gadget is your finger! This is important because drying out of soil just before watering promotes growth of roots.
Rule 3: Water less often, but thoroughly – This is really an important rule. Generally for most plants, its better to water less often but thoroughly. This is always much better than watering more frequently with little quantity of water. The next rule, that’s rule 4, explains this concept better.
Rule 4: Water Must Reach the Roots – Most roots are located deeper near the bottom of the containers. Hence superficial watering with small amounts and even though more frequently will not give you good results. Hence thorough watering and less frequent watering is recommended so that the water reaches the deeper roots till the bottom of the container.
Rule 5: Water late in the evening or early in the morning – In late evenings and early mornings, the soil is cooled and hence less water evaporates than it would, on hot soil during the day. And the plants can sufficiently stock themselves with water for upcoming photosynthesis and the plants will be able to deal better with the upcoming heat of the sun.
Rule 6: Keep the Leaves dry to avoid fungus – Generally for most plants, especially for succulents and cacti, it’s recommended to pour water on the soil and not drench the plant completely due to the risk of fungal disease, but this depends on your local climate and the type of plants. If it’s scorching hot in summer, you can mist or drench some of the plants. But not those plants which store water in their leaves and stem like the succulents and cacti, due to the risk or rot.
Rule 7: Water Gradually and Allow it to go down into the soil, wait and water again till the water comes out of the drainage hole. This is thorough watering and important for deeper roots to receive water. As I already said in rule #3 – less frequent but thorough watering.
Rule 8: If you are on a vacation or want to reduce watering frequency, you can use clayrich soil but smartly. This holds water well and this is the soil used by most nursery guys to water their plants less frequently. But there s always a risk of root rot from water stagnation if you use clayey soil. You can also use water retaining gel crystals like the SAP gel crystals or the super absorbent polymer which are now available as non-toxic safe granules which significantly reduce watering frequency.
Rule 9: Different Watering For Different Plants- This is really important specially if you are a beginner. You have to know the name of your plant and also its care tips like watering requirement, sunlight requirement and stuff like that. Do not hesitate to ask the plant identity and google about its care tips and watering requirement.
Rule 10: Container Gardening Vs Ground Gardening – Watering Requirement and Frequency is different for these two types of gardening. Remember this line: Container grown plants dry out much faster, and hence require greater watering vigilance.
Rule 11: Always Water Your Plant after Repotting: so the plant can settle in and stay hydrated while it establishes itself in its new home.
Rule 12: Rather These are Small Tips Like:
– Plants in large pots dry out more slowly than plants in smaller pots.
– Plants in bright daylight dry out more quickly than plants in low light or indoor plants.
– Humid air keeps soil moist for longer, than dry air.
What we are basically doing is, creating mini water reservoirs or mini water storage houses for your plants. These reservoirs provide a stable supply of water and nutrients to plants. We increase soil water holding capacity to 500 to 1000 times. This is really useful in drought prone areas or if you have water shortage. This method helps to conserve water, save your valuable time, manpower and perhaps money not only in summer but in other times like when you have water shortage and also its a great hacks when you are out on a vacation. One more benefit of this is, It also reduces the quantity and frequency of fertilizer application. The research article links to this video are provided in video description, you can check the detailed articles on this gardening idea.
Well, Now How to Perform This Hack? Actually I am experimenting this method and showing you how it works. I have taken two containers of identical size and soil plus the identical plants of almost the same size. Because the watering requirement may vary between different plant species and also different plant sizes. So, I have taken identical plants and labelling one container as T – that is TEST PLANT and the other one as C – that is Control plant. We will be obviously adding the SAP substance to Test container and not to the Control. Both of these are watered only once on day 1 and the moisture levels are checked daily or on alternate days.
So now lets look into the Procedure on How to add this substance:
If you are doing this on your existing potted plants, you need to dig out some holes around your plant. You can keep the depth of each hole to about 3 -4 inches depending on your plant size and root system. Do this carefully and make sure you do not damage or dig on the roots. You can use any tool like a screw driver or even a pipe. Make some 4 to 6 holes around your plant, depending on your pot size and also plant size. If your plant has larger water requirement, then dig much deeper holes.
Now Add Just 1 or 2 gm of this SAP material into each hole. 1 teaspoon I think its about 4 – 5 gram. So add 1 -2 gm approx. into each hole and then cover these holes with soil. Then add about half to 1 litre of water depending on your container size. I will discuss about what is this SAP compound shortly, but be assured this is a fully bio-degradable and non-toxic substance.
One more method you can use this, if you are repotting any plant, you can mix about 1 to 2 teaspoons of this stuff into your potting mix. Mixing it with soil results in a light, fluffy, aerated well draining soil, which is really good for your plant health. But do not use this for succulents and similar plants.
So, Now before discussing on What is SAP, will show you the result of this experiment. On day 1 after adding this substance and water, leave on for an hour for the SAP to absorb water. Now you test the moisture level using this useful gadget which measures both pH and moisture levels. The link to purchase this is on my website www.gkvk.in. One more point to clarify – this is not a promotional video where I am promoting some companys stuff. On my website, I have only listed the things which I have purchased and tested personally.
Well, I have kept both Pot T and Pot C in the same location and similar climatic conditions under my 50 percent shadehouse to receive the same amount of sunlight. Make sure these are not watered daily and in case if you are expecting rain, you can shift to a safe location to protect them from rain.
Now on Day 1 after watering both Test and Control Pots, the moisture level is very good in both container – showing Fully WET in the meter.
Its not at one point in soil, I am checking it all around the soil in pot T as you can notice in the video.
After 2 Days, you can see the moisture level has remained nearly the same in Test Pot – that is its still completely WET and the control pot moisture level has fallen from wet to just MOIST.
On Day 3, you can see Test pot is still WET and the Control Pot is showing DRY. This means it needs watering immediately. The results may vary depending on your zones climatic conditions.
Well, On Day 5, You can see there s a fall in moisture level, but still its showing MOIST and can continue for a day or two. You can either water your plant at this point or wait for another 2 days and rewater so that the hygroscopic meaning water absorbing crystals takeup this water and hold and supply this to your plant for another week.
So, this proves the effectiveness of this method and you do not need to water your plants frequently and your plants remain content, happy and healthy, This is really useful specially in summer or even if you are going on a vacation!
So Now Quickly Lets Learn Whats this SAP and What is the cost of this substance and where its available?
SAP is nothing but Super Absorbent Polymer or hydrophilic or hygroscopic polymer chains, SAP also sometimes called as Hydrogel substance. It is an eco-friendly, non-toxic, harmless, biodegradable material with super good water absorption and water holding capacity ranging from 100 to 1000 times water retention to its weight. Different grades of SAP are available for different purposes with different capacities.
Water beads or water crystal balls are also similar hygroscopic polyers, they are usually sodium polyacrylate and used for similar purpose.
In agriculture they are used as water reservoirs within soil and they absorb the water when it is raining and release water back when it is dry.
Now How much does this cost? This is not too costly. I got this 250 gms of SAP for about 4 USD. May be Its much cheaper if purchased in larger quantities. You can find the link to purchase this in description and also almost all products that I have purchased and tested are listed at my website www.gkvk.in . Its not a functional store, but a catalogue of links to items that I have purchased or those that I recommend.