How to Make a Simple Watering Schedule for Your Plants
It goes without saying that, as an older millennial, I have a passion for plants. I have five of them on my office desk (one is a small aquarium with two marimo moss balls). But I don’t just go on autopilot and water them every Friday. Plants don’t like this, they prefer a more personalized schedule. But how do you keep it in order? Here’s an easy way to schedule your plants to water so that each plant is getting the right amount of water.
1. Consider the conditions
- Plants in large pots dry more slowly than in small ones.
- Plants dry faster in bright light than in dim light.
- If your plant is in very humid air, it keeps the soil more moist for longer than it would if the plant lives in dry air. The office tends to be drier.
- Is your plant near an air conditioner or heater? It will most likely need to be watered more frequently.
2. Consider a plant.
Some plants like to “dry out” and prefer longer intervals between waterings – for example, take my jade sweat, which always takes ten or more days between waterings.
On the other hand, my Alocasia Polly is an Amazonian plant that grows well in humid conditions and should never dry out. Google each plant to see its watering characteristics. You will quickly see why watering is not right for everyone. (Also, some plants like to fog up between waterings.)
3. When to water
So you’ve researched your plants and paid close attention to environmental factors. Eventually you will realize that 6-7 days can pass between waterings of Alocasia, and no more than 10 days between waterings. It all depends on the plant; there is no standard rule of once a week.
Overall, though, it’s a good rule of thumb: The plant can be watered if you stick your fingers about 2 inches into the soil and find it dry. If it’s wet, leave it on for a day or so, then go back and water.
4. How to track
Here’s how to create a simple watering schedule to help you manage the needs of multiple plants.
I first started doing this with a piece of graph paper in my office; I numbered the left side from 1 to 30, one for each day of the month, and marked the top with the names of my various plants. I put an “x” next to the number (date) with which I watered each plant. This way, by going down the column for each plant, I could count the number of days since the last watering.
But most people are digital, so I switched the system to Google Sheets.
That’s all. The tabular model can run for as many days as you want (or you can start over periodically) and process as many plants as you can harvest.