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High-quality peat moss: note the large, fibrous-looking pieces. This is Lambert`s AFM soilless mix. Image © Lambert; retrieved from their website.

Low-quality peat moss: a photo of the dark, small-particled stuff that is sold at the consumer level. Image © unknown; retrieved (strangely) from LA Readers blog.

It's pretty tough to dispute the effect of a perched water table when it's captured in photos like this. Image © unknown, retried from The Garden Professors Blog

I had promised back in one of the parts of Watering 102 (see parts one, two and three of that massive tome here) to write a little about growing media, and how to select or make one yourself in order to grow great plants. There are several aspects to consider that will help you make the best choice as far as what to use, and a lot depends on the type of plants you grow, how heavily/frequently you water, and environmental factors such as heat and humidity.

We’ll get this out of the way first, though: don’t ever call it dirt. Dirt is the stuff that ends up under our fingernails, and what we sweep off the floor. It’s something of a derogatory term, I feel. This is actually one of the first things that got drilled into us at horticulture school, and it stuck. We are all better off calling it soil, though even this is a bit of a misnomer, as what we typically use for indoor applications is a soilless growing media containing mostly organic material and no true mineral soil, such as you’d find in your backyard. ‘Soilless growing medium’ is a bit of a mouthful, though, so soil will suit our needs here.

First and foremost is peat moss. This material is partially decomposed sphagnum moss which comes in varying grades and qualities, and is the major component of most mixes, from the dusty garbage they sell you at the garden centre to the tried-and-true stuff used to produce countless acres worth of ornamentals of all sorts. When of an appreciable quality, it is best described as ‘fluffy’, and if you compare qualities side by side, the difference is striking. Quality peat is light in colour and feel and has varying larger particle sizes, which allows for good aeration. It also has a good water-holding capacity without becoming mud when very moist. It is relatively long-lived, though it does degrade over time. The other stuff is dense, with mostly small particle sizes, and is basically a more decomposed version of the nice stuff (being dredged from deeper in the peat bogs from which the material is drawn [the sustainability of which practice may come up in a future post]). It does become mud when you try and water it. It’s basically garbage, because it becomes a real challenge to ensure that a plant’s roots are able to absorb enough oxygen to keep from dying.

It’s important to make sure if you’re going to be purchasing straight peat moss for use in your own recipes that it is buffered: peat moss on its own is highly acidic (and is used as an amendment for acid-loving plants such as plants in the Ericaceae family such as blueberries), and bufffering will raise the pH from 4 or so up to about neutral (7), which is where most species will be best suited.

There is an alternate material to peat moss made from the husks of coconuts, called coir. It also comes in differing types, from roughly chopped husks to finely ground fibres. It is longer-lasting than peat, and also is less hydrophobic, meaning it will more readily absorb water when it is dry, which is handy. One serious issue is with the source of this material: as coir is processed it is often washed in seawater, and unless it is thoroughly cleaned can impart some serious saltiness to one’s plants, with the obvious devastating effect that you might expect. It is important to only buy this stuff from a reputable source (hydroponics stores usually stock it), or to process it yourself in order to ensure it is fit for use.

Perlite is usually the other component in soilless mixes. This is an expanded volcanic mineral which imparts greater aeration and water-holding capacity to the mix. It is not fertilizer, nor is it styrofoam, or anything else I’ve heard it being referred to as. It comes in varying sizes, with larger pieces being used for things like bark-based orchid media. It is admittedly ugly and unnatural looking, and has the bad habit of floating to the top of the container when watered heavily.

On that note, bark and sand are two more materials which can be found in some mixes, also in order to create more room for air in the growing medium. Sand is a bit outdated, but it’s cheap, and can be found in the dirt that’s marketed for cacti and succulents. Bark is more useful, but does break down eventually. Vermiculite is another mineral that is sometimes also used for enhanced water retention and aeration porosity. Other materials in specialty mixes are long-figer sphagnum moss, which is the undecomposed version of peat moss (you’ve probably seen orchids grown in this), and which greatly increases the water-holding capacity of a mix, tree fern fibre (a durable material derived from tropical tree ferns which creates a really nice open mix for things like epiphytes) and charcoal, which has little value past increaasing aeration porosity and its longevity.

So with that out of the way, basically what we’re looking for is a medium that provides the right mix of water-holding capacity to air-holding capacity for the type of plants we wish to grow, and for the amount of water we are applying. A decent basic soilless mix such as Berger’s BM6 contains about 75% peat to 25% perlite, and I’ve grown an extensive array of plants in this without any amendment. It can hold a lot of water if you let it, but it’s also a very good mix for keeping lightly moist, as it does drain quite freely. Again, if you let it go bone dry it will be difficult to rewet due to the hydrophobic nature of the peat, so bear that in mind. A lot of growers of gesneriads advise amending a mix like this to more of a 1:1 peat to perlite ratio, and while there’s definitely no harm to it, I’ve been able to grow most gesneriads I’ve worked with in just the basic mix by simply avoiding overwatering.

If you are heavy-handed with the watering can you may benefit from amending your mix, but there is such a thing as too light a mix as well. With increased aeration comes reduced water-holding capacity, and less than adequate watering can quickly lead to dessication. High temperatures and low humidity can also contribute to a more rapid drying of the media, and in some cases it may even be beneficial to have less aeration porosity in your mix: there are some unforgiving plants which are goners after they dry out even once (you’ll notice that the growing media of most ferns you see available, for example, do not even contain perlite).

How you use the mix will play a large role in how it performs. One of the most important things that needs your attention is that the media loses its functionality when it is crammed and forced firmly into the pot. While it does seem to hold a plant in place very well, this basically reduces all of those nice large spaces between soil particles that would ordinarily hold air, reducing them to a size that is then only capable of holding water. That’s bad news for plant roots, and maybe a bit of a slight to the hardworking folks who spend all that time developing and optimizing their professional growing media for the perfect aeration porosity. Slightly overfilling the container with soil and them watering the plant in gently but thoroughly will do wonders for securing the plant as the soil settles into itself, and the integrity of the mix will be preserved, allowing you (and of course, your plants) to take full advantage of its properties.

When watering these mixes, particularly when the container has been freshly planted, it is best to use a watering can or hose with a breaker in order to keep from disturbing the soil surface: in time, the soil’s microbiology will colonize the media and produce exudates which hold everything together nicely and make it easier to throw water on without having to worry too much about taking the extra time (good news for professionals).

Remember, too, that if you’re using any organic material at all, it will eventually decompose, and the soil will need to be changed. I won’t go into repotting here, but if you seem to have problems that could be explained by overwatering even though you’ve been doing everything the same way for a long while, decomposition of the media may be the issue.

A note on terrariums, particularly ones which actually have half a chance of success and aren’t just a few succulents thrown into a glass bubble because someone saw it on Pinterest (yes, I have a serious hate on for the current terrarium craze; so much so that I’ll likely rant aout it in another post): I want to draw your attention to the fabled ‘ABG mix’, one of a few substrate recipes whipped up by Atlanta Botanical Gardens for plants in their collection. This stuff has really caught on in the vivarium hobby (basically a planted terrarium that houses creatures like lizards or frogs), as it has perfect drainage and very long life, which are two things that can plague a planted glass enclosure. The mix commonly used is as follows:

1 part peat moss (or coir)

1 part milled sphagnum moss (ground or chopped long fiber sphagnum moss)

1 part fine horticultural charcoal

2 parts tree fern fibre

2 parts fine bark

You can have many years of enjoyment with this mix in the warm, humid conditions of a terrarium without it breaking down, and another bonus is that it looks way more natural than a peat/perlite container medium. If you play around with the ratios you can also create a great mix for houseplants that also resists decay and can allow you to go for quite some time without needing to repot due to substrate decomposition.

OK, one last thing about container media that has to do with drainage. There is an adage that many of you have no doubt heard about putting pot shards, gravel, or other material in the bottom of the container before filling with soil to allow for better drainage. This is a useless and counter-productive practice, and here’s why: because of the way water interacts with itself and with soil particles (cohesion and adhesion, respectively), it will not move readily from an area with small spaces between particles to one with large space between particles. The top of a layer of gravel or whatever is pretty much the same to water in soil as the bottom of the pot, so basically all you’re doing is eliminating valuable real estate for plant roots, and potentially creating conditions in which too much water is held in the soil because it’s not draining properly. Use the same medium throughout the container and you will generally have better results.

The photos to the left illustrate perfectly the effect of having a larger-particled substrate over a finer-particled one: the water distributes itself throughout the top layer and does not move into the layer below until fully saturated. The myth of drainage is one of those many things in horticulture that has just been repeated so often everyone thinks it must be true (and have a look at the comments on the page I grabbed the image from to see the type of stubbornness to change that is basically rampant in the scene, professional and amateur alike. This was another of the first things that we learned at school, and we did a whole whack of labs that really drove the point home for us.

So there it is, long-winded as ever. The takeaway points, I guess, are: don’t buy shitty quality soil, don’t cram it into the container, don’t bother trying to improve drainage with other materials, and don’t put succulent plants in terrariums.

Dryadella cristata, grown on a cork mount: no soil, no problem. Photo © In Situ Plants

Seemania purpurascens, one of the many fuzzy-leaved gesneriads that doesn't particularly appreciate cold water on their leaves. Photo © In Situ Plants

Ways to Tell if a Plant Needs Water (Or Not)

We obviously would prefer not to greatly disturb a plant`s soil every time we water by performing a squeeze test to see how much water is in the soil (see here), but we definitely want a clear idea of how moist the soil is. Below are a few ways to find out.

One effective way is to stick your finger in it. For real: you will be able to feel if the soil is dry or moist, and the sense will become sharper with practice and experience, to the point where you will be able to tell whether it’s quite moist, just moist, etc. The only issue is that you can only measure the soil to the depth of your finger (unless you’re working in bigger containers, in which case go on and get your arm in there). You’ll also get dirt under your nails this way. There are soil moisture meters you can buy that likely do a better job than your own finger (they’re longer, for one thing), but I can’t really comment on them, having never used them myself.

Soils tend to dry from the top down, and even if it’s bone dry on the surface there may be an appreciable amount of water lower in the container, particularly if it is large or if the soil is of poor quality. Keep this in mind when you’re checking your plants. (This would probably be a good place to emphasize the value of good quality soil: the stuff you buy in the little bags at the hardware store or garden centre is not worth the bag you buy it in, in my own humble opinion. I will likely write another post on this, as it’s certainly worth one, but suffice it to say for now that you will have better luck with plants indoors grown in something described as a ‘growing medium’ instead of a ‘potting soil’. The differences in their properties make a large difference in how much water they hold and how available it is to the plants.)

Another way to gauge the amount of water in the soil is to lift the pot (or tip it, in the case of larger containers). Moist soil weighs considerably more than dry soil: fill one pot with moist soil and another with bone dry soil and try it for yourself. The difference is dramatic, and as you get into the habit of lifting your plants you will really get a feel for how much water there is in the soil. This technique works especially well with plants still in their plastic grower’s pots (and indeed, I first learned this technique in a greenhouse). Heavy ceramic containers make the method a little trickier, but not impossible.

Sometimes plants will let you know if they are thirsty by actually looking thirsty. This is called flagging in some circles, and it’s a fitting word: a flagging plant can stand out like a sore thumb to the trained eye amidst an acre of its counterparts. It can be a subtle paling of colour or slight drooping (or raising, in some cases- Calathea comes to mind) of the leaves. Though it`s probably best to water the plant before it gets to this point, at least you can (hopefully) take measures before there is extensive damage to the plant.

Which is the next point. There are two points beyond this: a temporary wilting point and a permanent wilting point, which are quite self-explanatory. There are quite a few plants that lack a temporary wilting point, though, and if they go too dry but once they’re done for. Other plants will recover but never be the same again, while yet others can completely collapse and look as dead as you like, but give them a drink and they bounce right back, without any apparent damage.Some don’t seem to even have a wilting point: they just soldier on, bone dry, as the weeks go by. (But even they get there, eventually.)

Plants damaged by too much or too little water can display symptoms such as yellowing/browning/loss of lower leaves, and wilting (though none of these are exclusive to water management alone- nutritional and other disorders can produce similar effects). As we’ve seen, the effect of too much or too little water is the same, and so the symptoms are similar. What will likely be different between an overwatered and underwatered plant is the soil moisture: if a plant looks dry but the soil is moist, you will know (unless you just watered it, of course) that the plant is too moist and needs to dry down. These symptoms above ground are a reflection of what’s happening in the root zone: if there has been extensive damage to the roots they may not be able to take up enough water for the plant to be able to support the top growth.

How To Water

I’d like to include a few things to think about when it comes time to actually water your plants. It isn’t, unfortunately (even after having waded through the preceding paragraphs), as simple as just dumping the right amount of water into the pot.

It helps to have at least a rough idea of how much water you’re applying to give you a good frame of reference for whether that amount is too much/not enough/just right. I don’t mean breaking out the graduated cylinder, but knowing how much your watering can can hold, for example, will help give you a good enough idea of how much you’re actually giving the plant, so you can adjust or keep steady the amount that’s best for it.

And I know I spent a whole long while talking about the value of a schedule, but if you check your plant on the given day and it doesn’t seem like it needs any water, by all means skip it. You may need to keep an eye as you get closer to next week’s watering to make sure it hasn’t dried out too much, but if the plant doesn’t need a drink then it shouldn’t get one. Fairly common sense, but this is the danger everyone warns of when they tell you not to get on a schedule in the first place.

It’s not always possible, but using a watering can with a breaker (the round bit that attaches to the spout with the little holes in it) is best, in my books: it slows the flow of water so that you can be more accurate in the amount you’re applying, and it waters across the entire surface of the soil, which is helpful if the surface has dried faster than it has further down in the pot. A good soil will move moisture throughout itself to a point, but soil will be more easily and evenly moistened if water is applied across the entire surface, so even without a breaker I try and apply the water somewhat evenly around the pot.

Use (at least) room temperature water: this is really important if you want your plants to actually grow. I haven’t actually experienced damage to plants through irrigating with cold water (maybe because I don’t do it), but I have heard and would be inclined to believe that it is a risk, particularly with cold-sensitive plants like Aglaonema. (I looked around online for papers or some credible source, but couldn’t find anything). What I do know for a fact is that water temperature is used in commercial greenhouses to control certain crops, with applications of cool or cold water controlling height and rate of growth in order to produce a crop that is finished on time, and at the standard size (think Easter lilies).

Watering from overhead is great if you can swing it: it helps to clean the leaves, and I feel like that’s how the plant would typically receive water in nature. Without the type of air movement experienced out of doors, though (to say nothing of the impracticality of it indoors, too), overhead watering can cause water to collect and remain in the crowns or axils of plants without evaporating away, where pathogens can take up residence and cause problems; crown rot of Phalaenopsis orchids is a big one that comes up a lot. Again, use warmer water, and water early in the day so that the foliage has a chance to dry before it cools down in the evening in order to keep these diseases from establishing themselves.

Well, there you have it. I guess in closing I should probably apologize for making such a simple thing so complicated, but as I mentioned at the beginning, watering is probably the thing that most people have a tough time getting right. I hope that the info I’ve included here is of use in your growing endeavors, and please let me know in the comments if there’s anything you feel I missed or that needs clarification. And I’d like to thank Albert Grimm and Bill MacDonald for first complicating the subject for me: many (if not most) of the concepts you’ve read here came from them.

Utricularia australis, which prefers to grow on the wetter side of wet. Image © Josef Hlasek; retrieved from his website

How Much Water?

Once a schedule (see the last post) is in place that allows you to maintain better constancy in your soil moisture, you can now tailor the amount of water you apply to different plant species. There is no plant I know of that does not appreciate water, unless it is in dormancy. The issue is with the amount of water, and thus the amount of air, that is in the soil at any given time. Most cacti, for example, are evolved for long periods of drought, but this doesn’t mean that this is their preference. So often certain plants are described as ‘needing to dry out between watering’, but the truth is that this is not the case: rather, the plant needs to be prevented from ever becoming too moist for too long. Maintaining a very light but consistent level of soil moisture will allow xerophytic plants like cacti to maximize their growth without causing damage to the roots. This requires something of a steady hand in order to not give your plants too much water, and adapting your soil for different species can help a lot to get things perfect (in the case of cacti and other succulent species, I recommend adding something with a large particle size that improves the aeration porosity of the soil). It is worth noting, though, that with careful watering alone, you should be able to keep widely different species in a standard peat/perlite mix.

Knowing which species you are caring for is the first part of knowing how much water a given plant will need. There are countless resources online and elsewhere that recommend care for the majority of species in circulation. If you’re more inclined to nerdiness like me, you’ll also probably look into where the plant originates in order to learn more about its natural habitat, and take cues from this towards the plant’s care. (I will write more on this at some point; I promise.) All this, though, needs to be tempered with your own experience of the plant and how it grows in your environment, and this requires that you pay attention to what your plants are doing, and how their environment changes throughout the year. Some species are known to rest a little through the winter, for instance, and typically these do not require much moisture at that time. Conversely, the air generally becomes much drier indoors during the winter, when we run our furnaces, which may contribute to the plants’ increased respiration and thus need for additional water. Your growing situation is unique, and it is up to you to find what works best.

Some plants prefer a moist soil, and yet do not take up too much of the water, so after obtaining the correct level of moisture, one can apply small amounts to compensate for the plant’s uptake and any loss through evaporation. One the other hand, some plants which prefer moist soil use a tremendous amount of the available water, and so will need to be watered heavily on the regular. Plants receiving more light will use more water than those in shadier spots (and will require more feeding, but this is best left for another time). Larger plants will obviously use more water than smaller ones, though larger plants are often more drought-tolerant than smaller ones.

A quick note on watering until water flows from the bottom of the pot: unless your water is of very poor quality or you are feeding large amounts of fertilizer, this practice is not really necessary. It is a good way to ensure that your soil becomes evenly moist (read saturated), and it is definitely helpful to have drainage in the event that you do overwater, but it is also a waste of water. In our industry we keep plants for many, many years in containers which do not drain, and they fare quite well. Another aspect to this is that if soil is completely dry, often the applied water will travel straight through it and out the bottom of the pot without wetting anything along the way, which can give a false sense of accomplishment if all we`re looking for is water pouring out from the bottom. If your soil is already a tiny bit moist, simply water carefully (read slowly) until you bring the soil to where you want it, moisture-wise, and you won’t need to waste any water.

Quantifying (sort of) Soil Moisture

So I just spent a whole bunch of paragraphs explaining that different plants prefer different levels of soil moisture, often at different times. But what does barely moist or nearly wet actually look and feel like?

Enter the squeeze test. In most quality peat-based media (not the off-the-shelf stuff), the soil will dry to a conspicuous pale tan colour. If the soil is completely dry, take a handful and squeeze it and it will not hold together. A slightly moist soil will be slightly darker and will mostly hold its shape if you squeeze it as above. Moderately moist will be darker still, and should hold together and even release a tiny bit of moisture if squeezed. Moist and saturated soil will be as dark as the soil can get, with some and quite a bit of water, respectively, released upon squeezing.

This squeeze test is a good way to familiarize yourself with how much water is in the soil in relation to its appearance. Once you get a feel for it (ha ha) you will be better able to eyeball the moisture level of the soil more accurately, though relying on appearance alone can sometimes be deceiving (more on this in the third part).

If a plant wants to stay moist but not wet (and many do, but please don`t accept the care instructions that come with purchased plants as gospel, for there are quite a few variables I’ve already mentioned [and more that I haven`t] that can affect how much water a plant uses), keeping it between moderately moist and moist will likely keep it happy. Keeping a soil barely moist, as I mentioned above, is a great way to optimize the soil environment for succulents or similar plants. And then there’s all of the in-between.

You will need to make your best judgement as you work with soil moisture levels based on your growing environment and the species you’re working with. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but make your changes incremental as you pay close attention to the plant in order to draw useful conclusions and avoid issues.

One more thing I think I should note before I leave off: you’ll notice that I keep (almost exhaustingly, probably) using the word soil, and I should clarify that when I say this I am referring to whatever you’ve got your plants growing in (which I hope is a high-quality peat-based growing medium), and not that heavy mineral stuff from the back yard. These high-quality growing media are referred to as soilless mixes for the fact that they do not actually contain proper soil, but for our purposes here the term soil will be used (in part because it’s shorter and I seem to be typing it an awful lot).

I’m going to follow this post with one on Ways to Tell if a Plant Needs Water next week.

A photo of a sopping wet rainforest which I've put here instead of a boring stock image of someone watering a houseplant. Bosque Protector Los Cedros, Ecuador. Image © In Situ Plants.

The Moisture Release Curve, showing how water is available (or not) to plants. Image © Dr. Heiner Lieth; Retrieved from his page on the University of Caifornia website.

Watering is perhaps the greatest challenge people face when keeping plants indoors: getting it wrong can prove disastrous for many species, and it can be frustrating to lose a plant. As professionals, we are often asked how much water a plant needs, how often it needs it, and how to tell if it’s too much or too little.

I can’t give you all the answers: every plant is different, as is every interior environment, and both plants and their environment can change quite often. I can, however, outline (in a long-winded, but hopefully informative way) a few principles and techniques to help you answer these questions for yourself so that you can have greater success keeping plants indoors. This is Watering 102 because there are some more complex ideas here than are covered by other watering articles online for those that really want to nerd out about it.

After having finished this first bit, I’ve decided to release this guide in three parts, as it’s become almost absurdly long and you’ll probably want a break in between. I apologize in advance for not having kept it all more concise; please let me know in the comments if anything needs clarification. Today’s tome of a post covers irrigation frequencies and the moisture release curve of growing media. Don’t be scared.

How Often Should I Water?

Irrigation frequency is a something of a complicated subject, as there are many factors at play. Some plants need more or less water than others, and these needs can change throughout the year. What follows are a few considerations to keep in mind as you decide for yourself how often to water your plants.

From an industry standpoint, many professional companies, in the interest of reducing labour spent on maintenance, visit their plants every two or even three weeks. (There are some that go even longer, but they either do a horrible job or else make use of sub-irrigation technologies to ensure plants have access to water in the interim.) At In Situ, we typically visit our plants once a week. (Just sayin’).

The reasons for doing this are many, but an important one is to ensure that our plants make the best use of the water that is applied. We are typically maintaining larger plants than those often found in homes, but unless your plants are very small (4” pots or smaller, say), your space is especially warm or dry or the plants are in direct sun, weekly is probably a safe bet, or at least a good place to start when creating a schedule. Pick a day where you know you’ll have the time, and stick with it.

Note that when I said above that we water once a week (typically) in order to aid the plants in making the best use of the water we apply, I did not say that we necessarily apply more water than if we were to water every two weeks. In fact, the chances are that we apply less water over a two week period in two doses than we would do in a single dose. This is because soil that is still slightly moist can reabsorb water better than one that is bone dry. Peat moss (the main ingredient in most growing media), when dry, is hydrophobic, and actually repels water: we’ve probably all tried to water a plant and had the water glance off the soil and fly out of the pot and onto the floor, right? Never allowing the soil to completely dry allows one to apply only a minimum of water in order to bring the soil to the desired level of moisture, without having to rewet all the peat every time, which usually leaves it saturated, which can be dangerous.

Other sources may tell you that watering on a schedule can be bad for plants, and that the best thing is to ‘water when the plant needs it’. Watering exactly when the plant needs it is great if we have little else to do but hover over our plants with a watering can all day. Watering on a schedule can be bad if you are just blindly applying the same amount of water every week, say.

Watering at regular intervals, though, can allow one to monitor the plants and to see what the effect of the last watering has been. For instance, if a week has passed and you check your soil to find that it is still very moist, chances are that you probably applied a bit too much water the last week, and you can ease up a little going forward. Likewise, if you discover a very dry soil (and hopefully not a wilted plant!), you can probably begin applying a little more water every week. Plants’ needs can change from week to week as well, due to the weather, whether the plant is flowering, etc., and so we need to take this into account when we do water.

Most potted plants (as opposed to those in hydroponics or the like), cannot take up water from saturated soils, because the extra water has displaced all the gases in the soil, primarily oxygen. This interferes with the normal growth of the plant (part of which involves taking up the water from the soil) and also causes roots to die, having been, in effect, suffocated.

Plants that are watered infrequently typically need a large amount of water applied to ensure that they do not go too dry before they are watered again. The consequence of this is that there is a period immediately after the plant is watered where not only is it not using the water (because it is unable), but it is also not receiving any oxygen to its roots, which can damage the root system.

When a plant is allowed to go too dry (again, another risk inherent in long irrigation frequencies), roots can also be damaged: the obvious way is through desiccation, when root tissues dry out, collapse and die. But there is another danger: when a plant`s soil is dry, roots, in effect, suck harder at the soil to try and take up as much water as they are able (this isn’t technically exactly how it works, of course, but I’m not getting into capillary pressure, vapor pressure deficit, etc. here) to compensate for the water loss from the leaves through transpiration. If a plant is watered heavily at this point (and we`re all guilty of really soaking a plant that has gone too dry, mostly out of guilt), the plant takes up too much water too quickly, and the cells of the roots can rupture and, you guessed it, die. Proper restoration of a plant that has gone too dry involves gradually bringing soil moisture back up to a level where the plant can take it up without damage, which can take several hours’ worth of applying tiny increments of water to be successful. (Best, perhaps, to never let it get to that point, although as an aside I have heard that some plants can respond to drought stress by flowering, Spathiphyllum and Nematanthus among them.) It is perhaps a lot to ask someone to spend half their day watering one plant every half hour, and there are, to be fair, at least a few species which seem not to mind going from bone dry to wet, in my experience. Just be aware that this can be a concern.

The diagram to the right shows an example of a moisture release curve, which illustrates the availability (and unavailability) of soil moisture to plants. In this, case, anything above about 75% and under 20% is pretty much unavailable to plants, and furthermore those extremes can be dangerous to plant root health. So in order to optimize water uptake and keep our root zone healthy, we need to keep the water between (again, just in this hypothetical instance) 20-75%. How do we do this? Water more often!

This is where the weekly watering, as opposed to bi- or tri-weekly, can be a very useful tool. If we apply smaller amounts of water more frequently, we can maintain a more balanced soil moisture level, without the wild swings of ‘feast and famine’ watering. In this way we can keep the plant as close to its preferred level of moisture as possible for as often as possible, allowing the plant to grow its best without periods of inactivity or even stress.

Stay tuned for the next installment; How Much Water, wherein I don’t tell you how much water to give your plants.

Tag: water

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