Caring for Potted Plants: Watering
When we bring plants to our home and
plant them, it becomes our implied responsibility to provide proper care to the
plants we've brought in. Without proper care, the plants will die and that, I
suppose no gardener ever wants. A plant may need a variety of care in order to
grow and sustain well. With proper care, plants can grow well and that is every
gardener's delight to see his/her plants growing well.
Though all plants need care, caring for
plants becomes much more important when the plants are placed in containers, or
somewhere, plants are not meant to naturally be. For our potted plants, we need
to take a lot of care as a plant is completely dependent on us for its
nutritional and other needs to grow well, because it doesn't have any scope to
be dependent on the nature and its mechanisms to fulfill its needs as it is
confined by us, in pots, with limited supply of soil, water and other nutrients
for its growth, as against plants on land where plants can get some part of
their nutritional and other needs from the land itself. This is when proper
care for plants is needed.
One of the most important aspect in
plant care is watering. Though everybody knows that water is very essential for
all the plants, and plants won't make out without water. Water requirements of
plants depend on the type of plant you're growing for example, most flowering
plants need a good amount and frequent watering, while succulents and
xerophytic plants can sustain a longer duration without water, but ultimately,
these also need water.
Since I am into container gardening, I
won't go into much detail about common gardening practices on land, and will
try to keep myself restricted to gardening in containers.
Here, I am listing some best practices
that, I follow to keep my plants growing well and healthy, and believe me, I
have a great record of plant sustainability. May be the practices I follow
might not fit completely to your case, but the basic idea behind doing these
things and the ways remain almost same.
1. Identify the plants according to their categories: For example,
succulents and cactii need less frequent watering, while other common gardening
plants might need more frequent watering.
2. Identify the sizes of the containers your plants are in: As a matter of
common fact, larger containers or pots might hold larger amounts of soil and
thus be able to retain the water for longer duration, while smaller ones with
comparatively lesser soil might need watering at frequent duration.
3. Having an idea of the type of soil you're using is an added advantage:
For example, some variety of clayey soils hold water for longer durations as
clayey soils have a higher water retention capacity compared to other varieties
of soils. So, you should have a basic idea of the soil type you're using. For a
rough idea of the type of soils and their basic characteristics you can
checkout this page. And for a
rough idea of the soil type in your region you can check out this map.
4. Having an idea about the weather of the region also helps you the plants
suitable for your region and the water requirements of the plants suitable for
your region. Seasonal variation also plays a very great amount of role in the
water requirements of plants you've planted. Like, for me, during this period
of time (summer months May to mid july), it becomes necessary to water my plant
pots about three times a day. So, I (infact my mother, in my absense during
day) take care of the watering the plants in the morning, in the afternoon and
in the evening as well. While during monsoon, it won't be necessary at all to
water any of the plants. And in winters the watering frequency comes down to a
couple of days.
5. The age of your plants is an important factor in determining the water
needs for the plant. Generally young plants with tender leaves and stem and a
not so established root network need more water than some hardened old plants.
6. Apart from helping plants grow, regular watering also helps plants fight
against frost bite during cold winter months.
7. When you're going out on a holiday, you should make some alternative
arrangement for watering your plants. You can ask for help from your generous
neighbour for this. Some DIY (Do It Yourself) lovers can design a good drip
irrigation system attached with a tank using some hose pipes to supply water to
your plants in your absense. But, such a thing should be thoroughly tested
before actually using it, or it could have drastic effects.
Tips for watering potted plants.
1. Unlike regular land plants that can even sustain some of harsh
behaviour, while watering, you need to take care while watering potted
plants. I prefer watering my plants using a hose pipe, and try not to let a
steady stream of water fall directly on the soil in the pot, instead I block
the outlet of the hose with my fingers to sort of spray the water over
the plants. This way, I sometimes save some soil and compost from flowing out
of the pots due to the force of water. Also, watering this way, helps in not
exposing the roots of your plants.
2. The top layer of your plant's pot may disguise you into believing that
the plant drastically needs water. Infact, since the top layer is directly in
contact with the sunlight, it gets dried up, but there are great chances that
the soil inside might be moist. Make sure that you're not believing this if you
haven't watered your plant for a while.
3. Both underwatering and overwatering has a great potential to damage your
plants beyond repair. While under watering will expose your plants to acute
shortage of water and eventually drying out, over watering may rot the plant's
roots and stems and also allows the growth of parasitic, fungul and bacterial
diseases of plants. Watering should be done in good amounts. Most of the
containers have some space usually at the bottom to let excess water out. Make
sure that before using that container, you are restricting (not blocking) the
flow through that space to some extent using a small pebble or something. Doing
this will block the flow of soil from the pot along with excess water through
that hole. Whenever you're planting indoors, you can make use of sort of
saucers available for this purpose. Usually these are plastic saucers readily
available with any store selling gardening equipments and supplies. These may
help in collecting excess water flowing out of your pots and won't let that
water soil your floors or carpets.
4. While regular fresh water is quite good for plants, one should use rain
water whenever it is available, as, somehow, rain water is much more well
suited for plants' growth.
5. It is normal for most plants to wilt due to shortage of water. One
should immediately water such plants, otherwise there are chances
that such a plant may not survive. Also, one should make sure that wilting
shouldn't happen with seedlings and newer plants, as recovery of such plants
becomes too much difficult.
6. Using some sort of shade to cover up your plants from direct sun light
in extreme summer months and extreme winters could actually save your
plants.This protects your plants from direct sunlight from the sun, thus
protecting fast evaporation and evapo-transpiration of the water from the soil
and plant leaves. Some people do suggest mulching as a method to safeguard
valuable soil moisture from your plants, but I haven't found this working
satisfactorily in my case, as any mulch, I use on the soils in pots get washed
away over time due to watering.
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A temporarily wilted cosmos plant due to shortage of water.
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A temporarily wilted zinnia plant due to shortage of water.
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Don't worry, both
these plants have wilted temporarily due to excessive heat and somewhat
ignorance on my part to water them in the afternoon. Now, when I water them up,
both these plants would be up straightaway.
I'll be back with
some more tips on caring for potted plants in the upcoming posts. You can also
share some of your tips related to the topic in the comments section, which
will be greatly appreciated. Till then, keep visiting and HAPPY GARDENING!
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