November 1, 2022, 5:12 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Potted plants need regular watering–if you water them too late, it can lead to problems. The structure of the potting soil contracts and becomes hard. This, in turn, makes further watering more difficult.
A plant needs enough water to survive–just like we humans do. However, if you wait to water until the soil in the pot is completely dried out, all may not be lost. But it’s still not good for the plant. Because with infrequent watering, the potting soil becomes hard. This makes further plant care difficult and can cause the plant to die. Experts offer tips on how to re-moisten the hard substrate.
Why Hard Potting Soil Is a Problem
“Dried out and hardened substrates and soils can lead to plant damage that is not always immediately apparent,” says Reiner Höpken, chairman of the Federal Association of Retail Gardeners.
And the dryness of the soil makes further watering difficult: The substrate has contracted into a block. The watering water hardly penetrates it but runs off instead. So it doesn’t reach the plant, which needs it so urgently.
What Helps Against Hard Potting Soil
Severely dried-out soil balls are most easily wetted by submerging them in a bucket filled with water, says Olaf Beier, chairman of the retail gardeners in the Horticultural Association of Northern Germany.
If the root ball is too large to submerge, place it on a saucer. Then water the root ball from above as usual. Excess water goes into the saucer–and stays there for a while. The ball should be able to absorb it, and the potting soil is no longer hard.
“If necessary, this process must be repeated until the ball is sufficiently moist even in the upper third,” says Beier.