Learn why drainage is so vital to houseplant health. Roots need air to survive, which is why drainage is important. Find out how to create the perfect drainage for your houseplants.
Hello and welcome to Healthy Houseplants, where we teach you all about gardening in the great indoors. Today’s video is sponsored by our Amazon affiliate link, which you’ll see in the description below. You’ll also see in the description below any links to videos in this video that I mention.
Today I’m going to talk to you about the importance of drainage. Why drainage for houseplants is so critical: The big number one reason, and I have a series of videos on this, is root rot. If you do not have adequate drainage for most houseplants, you will eventually end up with root rot. It’s not a pretty sight; it’s very discouraging and very sad when it happens. So if you can give your plants good drainage, then you can avoid that in addition to not overwatering. But starting with good drainage is really important.
You can’t even have a container that doesn’t drain well and say, “Well, I’m only giving it a little bit of water at a time.” Well, first of all, that creates a lot of problems. Number one, the plant isn’t getting sufficient water because most house plants like to be soaked with water so that all of their roots get hydrated. This allows them to soak up the water and become very healthy plants. If you’re only putting a little bit of water here and there, what happens is the roots that aren’t getting water stay dry. When you do that, they will atrophy and die. That can also set up a root rot cycle because what happens is within that soil, you keep losing roots until you have very little roots and there’s way too much soil for those roots. So you can create that problem even when trying not to create that problem.
The other thing is the plant itself needs sufficient water. That’s why plants, most house plants, like to be totally watered really well, where the soil is totally nice and moist, and then not watered again until it’s time. So you’re not at liberty to do that when you don’t have those drainage holes.
Even this little pot here has a drainage hole. Now another thing to keep in mind is the saucers. You may have drainage holes, but if you have the plant itself sitting on a saucer, what you want to do is make sure the saucer is not full of water after you water the plant. You can let it sit in that saucer of water for an hour or two, but after that, if the plant hasn’t soaked up the water, go and pour it off somewhere. The only difference here would be if you have created a humidity tray. For a humidity tray, you would put gravel, pebbles, or marbles in that saucer, and you would always keep the bottom of the pot on the marbles, but the water itself would be just below the surface of the marbles so the plant is never sitting in water.
[The speaker then discusses various types of pots and their drainage issues, including those with removable drainage trays and the importance of proper air circulation.]
A really good way, in addition to drainage holes, to create good drainage for plants is with pumice. This is my perfect pumice product, which I have a link to below. It will create within the soil itself nice air pockets. We’re talking about very small areas, but roots are alive, and they do need some air to survive. Most roots do. So what you want to do is put draining agents in, like pumice, because that creates various small air areas within the soil that allow the roots to breathe at the same time as soaking up nutrients and water. That will make them healthy plants.
If you have a pot that you love and it doesn’t have drainage holes, either create drainage holes in that pot somehow without breaking it, or use it as an outer vessel. I would use it as a catch pot and put some marbles and pebbles in the bottom of it. Then put the plant into it, having the plant potted in a pot with drainage holes. Put it within that outer pot, and just make sure that the water level doesn’t come up above the gravel or marbles in the catch pot. Then you’ll be fine that way, and you have that pretty look of that pot that you like without killing your plant with root rot.
That is why drainage is so important to house plants. Thank you for stopping by today. Please leave any comments about any indoor gardening tutorials you’d like to see. Remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share this video, and do check the bell if you’re a subscriber and you’d like to be notified when we release new videos.
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