hi guys Nick here and today we're gonna
discuss watering your houseplants and
how I go about it I know that seems like
a very basic thing almost like house
plant 101 but there's actually quite a
few ways to go about watering your
houseplants so we're going to discuss a
few of the ways today so before we get
into watering itself let's quickly chat
about soil and drainage so when you
purchase your plants from the nursery or
wherever you buy your plants from the
soil is going to contain an array of
ingredients whether that's peat moss
coconut coir perlite what have it so
they're typically not very good at
drying out from my experience
specifically the larger pots or the
larger plants that come in larger pots
with that in mind it's really important
to check before you water your plants to
see how moist your soil is so you can do
that in multiple ways you could simply
stick your finger in down to your second
knuckle and feel if you feel any
moisture you could use a moisture meter
to switch is an actual like gizmo that
you stick in the soil and it'll tell you
after a few minutes how much the soil is
or alternatively if you've had your
plant for quite some time you might be
able to just pick up the plant and feel
how happy the soil is from compared to
when you water it so obviously what soil
is gonna be heavier than dry soil you
can use whatever method works best for
you it's just really important to make
sure that your soils not too wet before
you water your plants or that can cause
over watering it's also pretty important
to make sure that your pot has adequate
drainage in almost all cases that's
going to be a drainage hole I would
recommend drilling a hole in your pot if
it doesn't already have one you can
actually find a little short tutorial on
that on my Instagram at Philly foliage
or I will probably be doing an
instructional more hands-on video as
soon in the future I've also heard of
people putting stones in the bottom of
their pots without a drainage hole but
in my experience that doesn't really
help because the water is still not able
to go anywhere so if you're absolutely
not able to drill a hole in the bottom
of your pot I would recommend putting
some activated charcoal in because
that's going to help balance the soils
pH and remove toxins from the soil with
all that out of the way let's begin
talking about watering so the first and
by far most classic way of watering your
plants is by watering from the top right
here I have this peperomia
up to so folios that not only feels very
light to me
it's an a peat moss based mixture so I
can see that it's began to pull away
from the edges of the pot indicating to
me that it's ready to be watered you
just simply slowly pour some water in
the top of your pot and you allow it to
absorb and then once it gets to
absorbing you'll pour a little bit more
in until the water starts to drain to
the saucer in the bottom of the pot so
it's really important that you make sure
that the soil is saturated all the way
through and some people would even bring
their plants into the bathtub and water
all of them there to make so it allows
them you know just drain freely without
having to go empty the saucer I'm a
little too many plants do you know move
everything around but I definitely would
recommend that to you guys if you do
have a smaller amount of plants it's
probably a lot easier especially when
fertilizing your plants so yeah we're
just waiting for this soil to begin to
absorb the water and now we're just
gonna wait for it to begin to drain and
then if it all the soil or all the water
absorbs into the pot we're just going to
add more until it starts draining into
the saucer if you have a pot that
doesn't have a drainage tool what you're
gonna do is after you've watered you can
just tip the pot on its side and any
excess water will begin to accumulate on
the side of the pot and you can use the
sponge or anything that's absorbent to
absorb all that water to avoid your
plant from sitting in it while watering
the top of the soil is the most classic
way of watering your plants it's not
exactly the best way and the reason
behind this is well it looks like the
soil is completely saturated when I
watered it from the top and it leaking
through the bottom it always isn't like
that it's very common that when you
water your plants on the top that
there's actually if you dig down just a
little bit dry soil and that is the case
right here so what we're gonna do is
talk about the second way of watering my
plants which is how I usually go about
watering my plants which is ordering
from the bottom when you water your
plants from the bottom you know that
you're giving them a sufficient watering
to do so all you're gonna need is a bowl
any kind will do as long as the plant
pot will fit inside the bowl so right
here today we're going to use this
peperomia occlusive folio red margin and
you're just simply going to place the
plant in the bowl you're gonna slowly
fill up the bowl about an inch to an
inch and a half of water because you
don't want to flood the
plan and you're just gonna allow the
plant to soak up the water through its
drainage hole at the bottom and just
wait a few minutes if the water is all
gone and the top of the soil is not wet
then add a little bit more but what
you're waiting to see is the top of the
soil but although you watered it through
the drainage hole so that's just telling
you that the entire soil has sucked up
all of the water that it needs and then
from there you can just left the plant
out of the pot allow it to drip and then
place it back on your saucer this is
such an efficient way to water your
plants in my opinion and it's pretty
easy to do you just put your plants in
you forget about them come back 10
minutes later see if their water does
not add more water it's very convenient
in my opinion and obviously there's some
plants that maybe are too big to fit in
a bowl and you just want to water them
from the top that's totally fine I just
wanted to share this with you guys so if
you're having trouble with your plants
or if any of them you're watering them
and maybe it doesn't seem like they're
actually being watered this could be the
case but I definitely recommend this
there are also a few more advanced
methods tried for that I'm gonna
recommend you to this video by summer
rain Oaks where she talks about her
watering hacks it's a very good video I
haven't personally tried any of these
hacks but once I get a little bit more
in depth with my collection I will
definitely be trying them out
specifically the hydro spikes so look
out for those alright guys thanks so
much for watching let me know if you
have any questions and have a wonderful
day