Watering
3 guides tagged Watering, from first steps to advanced care.
- BeginnerGarden Care
How I Get 40-Odd Pots Through a Pune Summer Without Losing Half of Them
My first two summers here, I lost plants steadily from April through June and blamed the wrong things each time, watering, pests, soil. The actual problem was heat itself, on a north-facing balcony that still runs 37 to 38 degrees most May afternoons. Here's the routine that changed that: when I water, what I shade, and how I tell real heat stress from ordinary afternoon wilt.
7 min readRead guide - BeginnerGarden Care
Watering My Balcony Pots While I Am Away: What Actually Survives a Trip
I lost two young chilli plants and nearly lost my curry leaf the first time I left Pune for a ten-day trip without a plan, I asked a neighbour to water "sometimes" and came home to a mess. Here is what I actually do now depending on how long I am gone: which pots need help at all, the bucket-and-wick trick that costs nothing, and when a favour from a neighbour beats any gadget.
6 min readRead guide - BeginnerIndoor Plants
Does the Ice Cube Watering Method Actually Hurt Orchids? What the Evidence Shows
The one-ice-cube-a-week method sold on big-box Phalaenopsis tags skips a documented fact about the plant: root rot risk rises below 18C and leaf drop follows sustained exposure below about 15.5C. An ice cube is 0C. Here is the cold-tolerance evidence I could verify, and the meltwater-dilution defense I could not.
5 min readRead guide