How Drainage Works in Pots, The Perched Water Table & a "Drainge Hack" that Doesn't work!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ค. 2024
- Today I share the my most favorite takeaways from my Soil Science 101 course with the New York Botanical Garden. I did a presentation in class on drainage for houseplants, and turned it into a video for you! Learn alongside me with several experiments and my musings on drainage and I'll show you my strategies for potting my houseplants up!
Check out the companion podcast where I interview my Soil Science Teacher (it's SO nerdy and fun!) on Episode 95 of the Bloom and Grow Radio Podcast:
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Check out all of the online courses NYBG has to offer: www.nybg.org/nybg-at-home/
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Putting a paper coffee filter over the hole or holes of a pot will keep the soil in the pot and allow water to drain out easily....it has been such an easy way to do this. They are very durable yet light. Great info here! Thanks!
As a person who still learn English, your vid made me understand completely. Thank you for the experiments and the use of the simple words. :)
Hi Dina! I hope you are having a good day! :)
As a fluent English speaker, your English is quite good. Best of luck to you in learning!
Move over Bill Nye! 😂 I loved this. My drainage hack: I keep a turkey baster in my watering can to easily slurp up excess water from the trays as I go. Easy to stop overflows and reach hanging pots with it too. It also helps me precision-water my terrariums, propagations, and anything with dense or spiky foliage it’s hard to get the watering can spout into. Best $1 store purchase ever.
OMG THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!!!
What is the turky baster... O.o
@@growingjoywithmaria you took the words out of my mouth.
Perfect sounding idea...Can't wait to buy and use💜
I have watched many Indonesian videos on growing plants in containers and some of them also suggested putting a few pieces of pebbles or gravels at the bottom of the pot to cover the drainage holes ( around 4-5 pebbles ) so as to prevent the soil from blocking the drainage holes and therefore providing good drainage . However the amount of pebbles used are not in a huge amount (as shown in the experiment and covering almost half the container and this will eventually make the pot very heavy ) because the aim is just to cover the drainage holes. I had many instances whereby the soil did clog up the drainage holes of my containers and caused root rot ( I didn't add pebbles). Even" Gardening is my Passion" suggested putting some broken pieces of a terracotta pot at the bottom of the containers for the same reason : To prevent the drainage holes from being clogged by the soil. He normally uses only one piece of a broken terracotta pot because the pots used have only one drainage hole. So maybe one shouldn't fill up almost half or one third of the container/pot with pebbles in order to avoid the perched water table problem. Gardening Is My Passion (India) always uses garden soil in his potted plants as part of the soil medium(this helps to cut costs) ; however not solely garden soil. To improve the drainage, he also use sand, perlite , rice hulls/husks and others.
Aaaa.... thankyou for your argument on this. Now I know what something wierd in the video... that she had one third of pebbles... lol
This is one of those times where you don’t offer a reason why you did something specific because in your mind, it’s something that can be filed under “common sense” or even in the “no duh” cabinet. I don’t know Maria and this is the first video that I’ve watched from this channel. That said, I’m pretty sure that in the experiment, she filled half of the pot in question with semi-hydrous balls as an exaggeration. A deliberate attempt for the 3rd grader in the class to visually see and hopefully understand the concept of the perched water table. What makes all of this funny is that until I read the comment above, I thought she was saying “purged” water table.
When I do put hard, heavy bits in the bottom of a pot, it's either to weigh down something to protect against tipping, or it's crock shard (not flush) over any very large drainage holes to prevent losing too much soil until the roots can bind it up better. I feel like what a lot of people *think* they're doing would be better accomplished by placing drainable growing containers *on top of* pebbles or fired clay pellets so that you don't raise the perched water table, but you also provide a greater reservoir than a shallow saucer would. This way you either don't get a spilling saucer, or if you have deep-rooted plants, you can keep the drainage holes more open to the air than they would be if the bottom is close to flush with a saucer.
I was going to play this on 2x speed to quickly get the info and also just skip through but it ended up being so interesting and engaging from the start that I watched it all the way through. My attention deficit disorder is shook.
where have you been all my life? Finally! Soil science made plain. This is knowledge that ALL plant growers need! But you ALL NEED to see the video described by the text "Water movement in the soil".
Thank you graciously! I’m a new plant mom and I definitely appreciate the information and knowledge you are sharing amongst us 🌬✨💛
U blew my mind with the perched water table. I've never heard of it and I've been growing indoors for years. That really helped me understand where i run into problems now n then. Thank u 😉
Great demonstration of what “tapla” used to preach on the old gardenweb forums! Using his advice I started planting almost exclusively in gritty mix. Another good tip is to tilt the pot diagonally to reduce the water table volume even more! 💫
The perched water table is mind blowing! 🤯
Hands down the best explanation of the parched water table. I finally understand why puttings gravel at the bottom of pots won't work. everybody says it can be detrimental to plants, but no one was able to provide a clear explanation of the why. Good job!
wow thank you for taking the time to show and explain what you learned, I am a beginner who has some plants with drainage and some without and I couldn't understand the difference in benefits drainage could have on a plant.
You are so encouraging and vibrant and passionate in your sharing!! Thank you for this hack!
Proportions are so important. Love these experiments!
thanks friend!
Love your enthusiasm and your love for the plants.🌲😁
Just what i needed to see! Thanks a lot!
GREAT INFORMATION!
Wow, this blew my mind! I never knew this and it helped me understand how to better care for my plants. Thank you!
Thanks for the nice information and awesome presentation
Awesome explanations; you're a wonderful teacher, thank you!
Oh my goodness! Thank you! I love all this nerdiness! I learned so much!
Thank you!!
I’m getting ready to repot several of my houseplants, and I was going to stick pebbles in the bottom. So glad I found your video!
The podcast episode about this was so good. Loved hearing about soil science
so happy it helped!
Thank for the free learning. I had a feeling this was the way to go. And remember how the past generation held plants before all the leca stones was a thing.
These are awesome experiments. I am so glad you enjoyed the class and took the gained knowledge into the next level! Great job. Very engaging. I will show this to my future students.
thank you for being such a fantastic teacher!
This was amazing. Had to teach myself what PWT is for my Plant Propagation class and this was the most useful video I watched. Thank you for taking the time to relay this information!
What a great video, complete with the science and a demo. Subscribed!
This was super helpful! Thanks!
yay!
Pretty interesting information! Thank you for sharing and doing the experiment for us❤️❤️❤️🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Thanks. Makes sense!
Thank. Brilliant explanation. Never knew that.
Thank you for this educational and easy to understand explanation! I was about to put clay balls at the bottom of my tiny pots. I might mix in a tiny amount (1:4 clay to soil) instead of just layering them for the plants that need more air and drainage.
Thank you for your leadership. I hope the Soil Science 101 class will be offered in the future.
Thank you so much for this!
Thanks for the explanation!
well explained thanks
Very helpful information! Thank you!! I have two plants that are looking quite sad due to drainage issues, and I believe I know how to help them now! 😃
Great. Gonna try on my pot.
Fantastic information! Thank you.
Agree with the guy below me, you truly are adorable and I love not only your energy, but your knowledge as well. Thank you ✌🏻
The examples were very informative.
Great teacher, knows how to explain very good
Great video🙂
the perched water table is so critical!! thanks for this!!
Fantastic work! Information dense and engaging little class, hope you continue with teaching. I stumbled on your video actually looking for an NYBG class, but your succinct 15 minutes gave me exactly what I needed since I am replanting into an expensive line of pots with no drainage. Instinct and common advice says to start with a layer of pebbles and that the higher that layer is, the more effective the drainage is. How wrong. With the perched water table, that would have just brought the water level up higher in the pots and actually decreased the usable growing space. I am off today to find some liners for those gorgeous pots.Thank you so much for posting this.
This is a great video. I was surprised by the info you shared. Very helpful. Thank you.
Very informative! Thank you!
Great vid! So informative and also so refreshing to listen to with your enthusiasm to share. Subscribed.
Thanks for sharing this video. I really learned a lot today. Thank you.
awesome awesome class. I have learned so much! thank you for making this video 2 years ago.
You're a really good teacher. You have a passion for education. I've never really all about the soil in that way although I have removed most of the clay out of stuff I dug out of the yard. Not for planting I was actually after the clay. It will actually dissolving become a liquid so you could separate it like a gray slurry that's down in Alabama. I've been growing peppers for about three months. By accident some seeds started growing so I figured that's my calling. Grow big or go home.With a electromechanical background and winter approaching I'll be applying my knowledge to grow lights and experimenting with different LEDS color combinations and you know all the other alphabets, reflectors, lenses, diffusers, airflow, maybe learn something new. Intelligence is sexy and it's a whole lot easier to pay attention to somebody well-informed, speaks clearly and not to sound like your average male although it is what it is. Men pay more attention to somebody they find attractive. Hell here's proof I subscribed. I'm looking forward to more experiments and education. I believe maybe the best video I have seen on TH-cam since the invention of the internet.
Didn’t know about the perched water table. Thanks for sharing!
Great video, I learned so much! Thanks!
So cool! Enjoyed it very much!! Thanks 😊
Love it! Thank you for the tips! ☺️
Was watching this in incognito mode, had to switch over to my main account so I could like and post a comment for the algorithm. Great info, and well-illustrated with real world examples. Thanks!
Thanks. Totally makes sense. I might need to add more perlite to my mixture
Small layer of rocks at the bottom are used so the drainage holes doesnt get clogged up and for weight support
This is very helpful! Thank you for posting this video! I was about to be a victim of the idea of the perched water table... you saved my plants from that myth.
Ps. You're video is very entertaining! I like the way you present everything! A newbie like would totally understand these 😃 thank you so much
Interesting and challenging.
Good info 👍 like your enthusiasm : )
Required watching for every plant lover! Your enthusiasm is infectious!
Thank you for the information... I must say I use the terracotta gravel layer cause it helps keep the draining holes from getting clogged too.
this is so informative and helpful! thanks:)
Great video! Thank you 🥰
I've always added large chunks of bark and other chunky media to my mix, unsure why but I've always done it from day 1 purely to add more aeration into my pots 🤣 glad I started off in a semi okay way but still not quite right I don't think lol
Great info to soak up in this video, thank you for making content :)
Thanks!
I have tried pebbles on my very large terra-cotta part as well as just a few large river rocks to which does better. To make the comparison trifold, another had nothing but potting soil in it. With the first round I noticed that the pure potting soil and pebble lined ones retained more moisture on the bottom of the pots while the one with a few large with rocks rocks did not have that issue. A little research showed larger parts tend to have an issue with standing water along the bottom because the bottom of the pots are so flat and wide. So three smaller holes were drilled through the bottom and round two was conducted. Both the pure soil and pebbled pots did a little better, but not as good as the one with large river rocks. This could be due to my pots being 26 inches wide and 24 inches deep, wider at the top then the bottom. For the pebbled pot, it was a thin layer of pebbles instead of filling up half the pot.
You are freakin amazing! Im soo glad i came across your video here! Thank you so much for all the info! Bloom and grow on friend ! 👊🏻🤘🏻
Thanks! As a newbie all info is useful!
Shalom from Florida 🕊🪔🕊
Thank u…. Just learned I need to seriously repot some plants…
Omfg I love this so much ! Thank you!
Great info. Watching from Trinidad and Tobago.
This lady is kool, shes very bubbly and .you can tell she's really passionate about plants 🪴. Great video 🔥💯⭐️💥
thanks so much. very helpful
Glad it helped!
So knowledgeable & a great teacher! 😭
thanks so much- it's only because I had a great teacher!
Thank you for this informative video! It was a bit difficult to see how the water pooled in the soil demonstrations, but you explained very well! The sponge demonstration also showed the effect clearly. I am just starting out growing herbs on my window sill, so this information is super helpful!
She is so excited of what she learned lol is like she discovered the holy grail lol . I will subscribed 😁
My mind. Is blown. 🤯🤯
Nice!
This is hands down my favorite plant video. Loved learning such great info. Are any other videos on the channel taken from the Soil Science 101 course?
This all makes perfect sense, thanks so much. I always wonder why people say putting the plant in too large a pot leads to root rot?? any idea?? TIA
You are literally one of the most adorable people I've ever seen!
Oh and the video's content? Informative and coherently organized!
And of the delivery? Charming, perfectly and absolutely so!!
Fantastic effort!
If I'm gonna transplant to another pot I use plastic pots but the final pot I always use a smart pot(fabric) has great air flow no water just sitting in the bottom like a plastic pot. If you have root rot get some SLF-100 pretty much cleans roots and gets rid of root rot.
What about if you still have rocks or stones at the bottom but add more perlite to your potting mix?
Thank you for the clear and informative video. Can one use normal garden soil mixed with perlite, organic potting soil? Will the mixture be effective for well draining? Reason for mixing,is to save on costs in large containers
What do you recommend for wall planters. Can’t use a saucer to hold the water and because of the flat back you can’t use a nursery pot. I hat can you do in these cases besides mop after every watering. Also because pot is nailed to wall not ideal to remove to water. Any suggestions?
Very well depicted. I'm wondering about all these videos I'm seeing about self wicking where they're putting a container of some sort in the bottom to retain water allowing it to wick back up. Theory goes you don't have to water so often. Does this put the water table at the top of the hidden container or at the bottom because the soil reaches to the bottom around the container. Or, are the two even comparable?
Thank you for this informative and INFORMED video. I have a natural tendency toward drowning and drought. I've come to the conclusion it's an art!
I'm trying very hard to filter myth from fact and even apples from oranges. I recently picked up by Jorn Viumdal. It's an amazing idea and a completely different watering process. I noticed that the NASA study included charcoal which really made me wonder..slow nitrogen release? Cleaner Soil? Water Barrier from clay pebbles that maybe I could use to ensure I don't kill my plant when I travel... AARRGH...information overload. Now I have self-watering pots, charcoal, clay pebbles, a roll of garden fabric, and some avocado and citrus plants (that didn't come cheap) waiting to be potted. I'm deeply in paralysis by analysis. I am wondering if I can combine some ideas, clay pebbles covered with a layer of charcoal (he called for garden fabric). But the more I see information like yours, the more I feel that just providing them with good drainage and access to water, utilizing capillary action (thank you for sharing that name), and providing room are the way to go. Admittedly, he was clear that his planting method does not work for all plants. Unfortunately, he was light on the science behind it to explain under which circumstances his method can be applied outside of pathos plants.
Very interesting.
A couple of questions (I am REALLY new to houseplants):
What determines the perched water table level?
You mentioned sometimes leaving some water in the tray the pot sits in so the roots can later soak up what they need through capillary action. So the soil has capillary action which contributes to the level of the perched water table, and roots also pull in water through capillary action?
I cannot really say what I learned that I didn't know, because nearly all of what you said I didn't know!
Thank you for these lessons.
As a bonsai collector, I have been coached to put larger granules of the bonsai soil on the bottom. So if I use of mix of pumice, lava, and akadama, I put 1/8" size of the bonsai soil as a layer on the bottom and then 1/16" for the rest. Will this work?
Your garden soil looks good. Mine is so dense, slippy and red, it's almost pure clay. You can literally mold it and it hold it's shape.
What about putting coffee filters at the bottom? Will they also retain too much water?
Do you like adding perlite to top quality soil, or use it straight out the bag?
So if you mixed potting mix with garden soil and a bit of perlite you would get a pretty good soil medium for most plants?
I've had much success with with no drainage planting much like a terrarium however between the rocks and soil I put a false bottom using plastic window screening.. havent had a plant not flourish..
I use a piece of wood like a wooden cookie. It helps keep the drainage hole clear of dirt and also as it rots away it will be plant food.
Thanks. I am worry about moving my plants bcs they dont move in nature. So are you think they dont have problem with it? I mean when i pour the wather from under it.
Very interesting! I wonder if horticultural charcoal at the bottom would make this different, if at all. Thoughts?
i personally stand by the holes or bust method!