Plant Drainage | A Critical Factor In Plant’s Health
Plant drainage is one of the most important aspects of a plant’s health and life.
Watering frequency, humidity levels, soil types, and even fertilizing frequency and quantities, are all important aspects and variables that contribute to the health of a plant.
However, without proper drainage, all efforts to fine tune and tweak these aspects, are useless!
In fact, the proper, (or the lack of), plant drainage, can make or break the growth of a plant!
Why?
The answer is simple; without proper drainage, the plant’s roots end up rotting, and the plant will eventually die.
How?
Generally speaking, plant’s roots don’t like to sit in stagnant water, (except for water plants, or cuttings rooting in water).
Excess water, incapable of flushing out of the pot, will cause water-logging.
Water-logging occurs when the soil is so wet, that it closes all the air pockets within the soil, leaving no oxygen for the roots to “breathe”.
Plant pot with the proper amount of draining holes.
In addition to the draining holes, the bottom of this pot also has contours, rather than being flat. These contours promote air circulation under the pot into the soil.
When the roots can’t breath, they develop Root Rot, which inevitably kills the plant.
Excess water also promotes the accumulation of gases, such as dioxide and ethylene, which are detrimental to the roots growth.
Poor drainage can be caused by different conditions, such as;
- the lack of drainage holes
- stagnant water left in the saucer after watering
- accumulation of water in a cache-pot, (a non draining over-pot for a plant).
Poor drainage is not only preventing water to flush out through the soil. It is also contributing to salt built-up. Without drainage holes, the salts present in the tap water used to water plants, will accumulate over time at the bottom of the pot, resulting in damage to the plant.
Typical symptoms of poor drainage are;
- wilted leaves that don’t improve after watering
- yellow leaves
- drooping leaves
Unfortunately, these symptoms are common to over and under watering plants as well.
If in doubt, the best way to figure out if your plant is suffering the consequences of poor drainage, is to lift it from its pot.
If you see dripping soil and roots, as well as a pool of dirty (and foul smelling water), at the bottom of the pot, you know it’s time to repot your plant in a properly draining container.
It may not be too late!
Check out the roots. If they are dark in colour, and feel slimy and mushy to the touch, it means they are rotting, and the chance of plant’s survival is slim. (But you could propagate that plant, if you still have some healthy stems to cut out and root in water!).
If the roots are still white or yellow, it means you came to the rescue in time!
Simply repot your plant in a pot with draining holes, and allow it to dry out before watering it again!
This is how healthy looking (and crammed) roots should look like! Bright in colour!
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Now that you understand why plant drainage is so important for your plants, what can you do to make sure all your plants have the proper drainage they require in order to thrive?
First of all, you need to check whether your plants are planted in pots with, or without drainage holes.
If they are planted in pots without drainage holes, it’s important you re-pot them in the proper container, or at least use some tricks to provide proper drainage. For more on this, read my article on How to Plant in Pots Without Drainage Holes.
If your plant is planted in a pot without drainage holes, it becomes really hard for you to gauge whether it needs water, or not.
Even when the soil seems to be dry at the top, it may be completely saturated with excess water at the bottom.
If your plant needs high levels of humidity in order to thrive, there are ways to provide the proper plant drainage, and maintain high levels of humidity at the same time.
Instead of placing your draining pot in an empty saucer, and emptying in every time there is sitting water, you can add one 1″ of draining rocks at the bottom of your saucer. This is called Pebble Tray Filled With Water, and it works wonderfully to maintain high levels of humidity for those plants that need it!
Ideally, your saucer is transparent so you can see how much water is flushing through the pot’s draining holes into the pebbles.
It’s important that the water level is lower than the pebbles top surface, so that the pot is not in contact with the water.
This way, the soil in the pot can have air circulating throughout, instead of being drowning in water, and at the same time, the water in the pebble tray maintains high levels of humidity.
Here are my three different types of ferns. They all need high levels of humidity, and at the same time, they can’t have drowning roots.
The pebble tray filled with water underneath their terracotta draining pots, is just what they need!
Plant drainage is key in maintaining healthy and beautiful plants!
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