Proper Watering To Your Plant
As has been mentioned before, you will want to select house plants that fit the environment and not the other way around. The temperature range in your home is very important to whether or not your plants will flourish. Plants also need “fresh air”, and exposure to gases, smoke and dust can damage your plants. Over time, air pollutants can be very harmful to your plants.
Remember to water all your potted plants from above the pot. The only exception to this concept is an African Violet plant, because exposing the leaves to water can be very damaging. It is hard to give them a proper watering without splashing them.
In other cases, watering from the top is the best way to be successful. Be sure that your potted plant is never filled with dirt higher than an inch from the top of the pot.
The best way to ensure a proper soaking of a plant, is to fill it to the brim and to allow the water to soak down to the roots until the extra water flows out of the drain holes at the bottom of the pot.
For plants that prefer being watered from the bottom, the process is just the reverse. You pour the water into the drainage pan at the bottom of the pot. You allow it to soak up through the dirt and then the soil on top will be damp to the touch. Once this is accomplished, you can rest assured your plant is properly wet.
Never allow water to stand in the drainage dish, this will cause the cause damage to the roots. Be especially careful to avoid this with any plants housed in a jardiniere. After a period of an hour, lift the pot from the drainage dish and check to make sure there is no extra water left over.
There is another method you can use when watering, it is called wick watering. This is a relatively newer system that uses a thick braided wick, to provide even watering all the way to the roots. You can even buy pots for plants that are designed strictly for this purpose at your local gardening store. The pot is on a covered saucer, on which the pots is placed, and then filled with water. The wick extends from the saucer through to the drainage hole at the bottom of the pot. As soil gets drier, water is gradually absorbed through the wick and distributed through the soil
Proper temperature is also very important, you want to keep your plants exposed to room temperatures or slight warmer. Do not water plants with cold water, because this can cause them to blight. If your tap water is “hard”, it is a good idea to install a water softener to rectify the situation.
WATCH OUT! TRADITIONAL SOFTENED WATER WILL KILL YOUR PLANTS! Mr Higgins’ advice above is all very good, EXCEPT that if you install a traditional SALT based water softener, as it exchanges the hard Ca and Mg minerals for sodium ions( from salt = Sodium Chloride) MOST PLANTS WILL SUFFER FROM THE HIGH SALINTITY. Never water with salt softened water! There is a great alternative instead: ELECTRONIC WATER CONDITIONERS, available in many brands, they take the hard minerals out of solution and place them in suspension. Plants need less water and less fertilizer, Of course, the main purpose of these modern systems is to prevent and eliminate lime scale from your water heater saving precious energy. But among the many “side effects” water washes better, shower heads and faucets are scale free, water tastes much better, even pets and plants prefer it to untreated water. After researching the many brands available, we found the best value to be the Scalewatcher 3 star, and the best customer service we found at http://www.ScalewatcherUSA.com