Water the Plants in the Morning
Whether you have an expansive outdoor garden or a few potted plants on your windowsill, ensuring they are properly watered is one of the most basic (and important) parts of keeping them alive. But when exactly to water? Does it even matter? When are your plants the most greedy? As it turned out, according to gardeners, the ideal time to water is morning. Here’s what you need to know about watering schedules for both indoor and outdoor plants.
Houseplants
Like humans, plants are thirsty in the morning. That’s why, according to The Sill :
They need to get water until the sun shines in full force and evaporates the water. Watering in the morning is also a good strategy for plants that don’t get as much natural sunlight as they would like, because several hours of daylight ahead helps to drain water immediately so they don’t sit in wet conditions. the potting compound is too long.
If you have plants such as ferns and aerial plants that also require spraying, The Sill recommends spraying them both in the morning and in the evening.
Street plants
Likewise, watering your garden, flower beds, and other vegetation in the morning helps prepare them for the day ahead. As we mentioned earlier, some types of outdoor plants do better when watered at the base with a water hose or drip irrigation.
But as Luke Miller points out in an article for Reader’s Digest , if you water these plants from the top rather than the bottom, the morning is better because it allows the water to evaporate from the foliage during the day rather than stay in place. during the night and can potentially cause leaf diseases. Miller also notes that annuals and vegetables also benefit from morning watering because they tend to have shallower roots and not much access to deeper soil.
The same morning watering policy applies to potted houseplants. Although Miller says that during the particularly hot summer months, you may need to water them in the morning and evening to make sure they are getting enough moisture. However, he notes that this is not the case for succulents and cacti, which require less frequent watering.
Miller says that if you’ve just potted or transplanted a street plant, it will likely need extra watering first:
Newly planted plants need more watering until they take root. The key is to keep the soil moist with mulch and water slowly and deeply to encourage the roots to move downward rather than concentrating at the top. Check soil moisture with a spatula. If the top two inches of soil is dry, you need to water, regardless of whether the plants are stressed by the moisture.
Regardless of the size and location of your plants, if you find it difficult to remember to water them or stick to a schedule, set a daily reminder for yourself on your phone or in the app .