While working at various jobs that involved plant care, I saw that the most common mistake that led to plant death was usually due to faulty watering habits. I’m hoping this post can help you avoid these common mistakes and keep you houseplant friends alive with these 5 indoor plant watering tips!
If you want to hear about these tips in more detail, listen to our podcast, Plant School, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or most any other podcast listening platform.
#1 – Don’t Water According to Time, Water According to Your Soil
When you get a plant, a common question is “How often should I water it?”. It’s a valid question, but there’s not really a right answer to it. The one fool-proof way to know if you should water your plant is to check the soil. Place one finger about 1-2 inch into the soil and if it is dry with no moisture, water it. If it’s a little damp, maybe only give it a little bit of water. And if the soil is wet, skip the watering for a few days or for a week. This should be your general rule. If you’re watering a cactus, succulent, snake plant, or other desert/low-moisture plant, you want to err on the side of letting your soil completely dry between waterings.
#2 – Low Light Means Low Watering
A plant functions by photosynthesis. Put more simply, the sun gives the plant energy to grow and take up water and nutrients. If a plant is not getting much sun, then it does not have the energy to use up the water as quickly. This means that if you have a plant that is in a low light situation, such as your windowless bathroom, then it will not use water quickly and you don’t need to water it very much.
Where you put your plant will affect the amount of water you need, which again testifies to tip number one, which is to check your soil before you water it!
#3 – Drainage Holes are a Must
Drainage holes are holes at the bottom of your plant’s pot. They allow excess water to escape after you’ve watered it. It’s important to have these holes because without them, the water you just poured in will be trapped and could cause your roots to rot if you poured too much water in. Water does not cause your roots to rot, it is the trapped and stagnant water that causes your roots to rot. That’s why you want drainage holes, to keep the plant from getting too much water that could be fatal.
#4 – Don’t Put Pebbles at the Bottom of Your Pot
It seems counter-intuitive, but putting pebbles or rocks inside your plants pot/container at the bottom will NOT help drainage. Water is cohesive, meaning that it likes to stick to itself. Because of it’s cohesiveness, the water that you pour into your soil has a hard time dropping down into the rocky area at the bottom of your pot.
The air/pore spaces between the soil are so small that for the water to drop down into your pebble or rocky base with it’s huge pore spaces is unlikely until you have large amounts of water. It creates an effect that is almost like you clogged your plants pot. It’s best to save yourself the headache and the higher likelihood of killing your plant by only putting one soil medium into your plant’s pot.
#5 – Misting Your Plants Doesn’t Really Help
Misting has become a popular way to care for your houseplants, but in all reality, it doesn’t do much to help them. Most houseplants are tropical and are used to humid environments but simply spraying/misting them every now and then doesn’t help the overall humidity in the house. Within minutes after you’ve sprayed your houseplant, the humidity has returned to it’s normal levels.
Misting also has the potential to create more problems if water gathers and sits on the plants’ leaves or stem for too long and causes rot. A humidifier can be more effective, especially if it’s in an enclosed space. If you don’t want to bother with a humidifier and misting, your plants will be just fine.
I know it can be intimidating to not know how to keep your new plant friend alive. These tips are a great start to keeping your plant healthy. I hope you found some (or all!) of these indoor plant watering tips to be useful!