My question is, arent we supposed to be making plant care easier, not harder for people!? Self watering pots can be great BUT ESPECIALLY for my beginner plant parents, they can be a bit tricky. If you continue filling, the plant will keep taking up water causing your plant and those roots to die. So it’s still very important to check your soil all the way through, before refilling. As far as these specific pots, I’m not a fan at all.
Big box stores don't care about the plant being healthy in the long-term. They just need to keep it looking nice long enough to sell it. When possible, always try to pick local nurseries instead. ✌🏻 They actually care about customer loyalty.
My husband worked at Lowes in the outdoor lawn and garden center, and he said when he started, employees got an hour long training video for how to care for different plants (including indoor ones), but no one remembered anything. Big box stores also have insurance on their plants, so yeah, they don't really care if they live or die in the end :/
Absolutely true! I believe that another reason why these big companies dont care for the plants they sell is that a lot of amateur plant parents won't know that they need to look into these pots and will care for them like how the shopkeepers instruct them to. This will result in their plants dying soon, blaming themselves for not having a green thumb and keeping on buying from these companies everytime the plants die.
Worked at the garden center and this could not be more true. Most customers don’t buy plants that look bad even if they’re healthy so the second it looks bad we mark it down and sell it on clearance
@@itsmeorwhatever627😂 “local breeder” yeah imagine forcing animals to reproduce so you can make money of it. Sounds like a caring human…how about local animal shelter
@@baret8349 I don't know how, but I managed to kill two Bonsai trees a few years ago. Now my house is full of thriving plants 😍🌿.....and a fake bonsai for now😅🌳
@baret8349 spider plants are usually easy, but I have one that has been a bit finicky over the years. I've had it about 3 years, but for a while it wasn't growing or making babies. Surprisingly, it actually needed better soil (fertilizer). Then I left it outside and a freeze almost got it, but I nursed it back. Then we moved and the new neighbors gave us a kitten. The kitten started chewing up the babies so I put it outside. The spot I put it was too bright and it got sun damage. Now it is back inside. I need to put it where the kitten can't get it. It's on a hook in the kitchen but the kitten climbs the counter and swats at it.
As someone that uses self watering pots for both carnivorous and other plants, I can agree there's a certain way to use them, trick is do not refill the water until it's dry below and then wait a bit longer, because if it's constantly wet the roots will eventually die to root rot. (It's best to use them for plants that like moist soil )
@@Yoyocreative I use a combination of long fiber moss, peat moss and perlite while having the bottom peat the middle the combo of long fiber and peat then the top being long fiber my carnivorous plant bog absolutely loves it (since peat is actually decade moss it makes a perfect bog set up) and again I do recommend waiting a bit before rewater since Venus flytraps can get root rot if not allowed any air in between waterings and the water gage is a big help
Me either. They wanted some dry soil for sure, but they're so bright and healthy still! Would've definitely started dying in a few weeks tho because of all that moisture 😱 that was terrible to see
My plants are doing so much better since I am watching your channel. Once you explain things it makes so much sense! Thank you for your hard work! 😊 You rock!!
I bought a spiral cactus that was like this. I was like you poor baby 😢😂!!! And funny enough I bought a pothos that was dry as a bone. She looked withered and I’m sure that’s why they put it on clearance but I put her in leca for self watering and you’d think it’s a whole different plant she’s so lively and green now lol. You’re creating an army of plant rescuers lol ❤😊!!
Ok self watering pots work. Those that use strings. In fact I do a lot of my own self watering pots with cotton strings, since I’m working Full time and also a mom I don’t have time to water my plants on daily basis. My plants are outdoors. My alocasia, aglonema, pothos, they love the self watering pots. The humidity is perfect for them. And also it’s constant humidity, I often kill plants with irregular watering schedule since I’m busy, so the self watering pots work. When done properly.
I've rocketed up to 23 pots of various plants since I started watching your videos. You've saved my babies from surviving despite my misguided care or from dying slowly, and I've had the confidence to take more on.
You have helped me so much in just the short time that I have found your channel! It was always a gamble if a plant would live when I brought it home. You have given me hope! ❤
You’re the worst! AND I LOVE IT!!!❤❤ You make me want all the plants and to repot them all and play with them all the time. Thanks for inspiring me and reminding me when I’m in the black hole of RU-vid to at least go water my plants and repot them when they need it. You a gem.
Self watering pot is a big no for me. No hard feelings, i just love watering my plants. Just a quiet and calm moment with yourself and thirsty babies, watching them suck up the water up their pot hole😂 It cures my anxiety better than talking to my therapist.
I use a self watering pot for my Golden dewdrop because the plant needs to be dried out or else it rots .water it once a week and it's good . Won't work for temperamental plants.
You've helped me so much on my plant parent journey. My (surviving) plants are thriving now. Almost feel ready to give my big herb garden another chance!
I have a ZZ plant from a big box home improvement store and it came in a self watering pot. It has been doing great on my desk at work. I didn't think it would work out, honestly, but she's happy!
On two separate occasions I've bought peperomias from my local supermarket and each time they had root rot and died within a couple of weeks (I didn't know to look out for it) 😭 they let them sit in water all the time, very sad
Im just getting into plants and i have those pots in my cart. Ill take em out lol. And let me just say i love you ithink you're plant teachings are sometimes hilarious 😅
Videos like this is what’s really taught me how to let my plants thrive. I got a Venus fly trap recently - HUGE. It was very quickly declining, so I had assumed I overwatered it (yes I use distilled). Turns out it was trapped in a tiny netting, the roots couldn’t move at all.
I had a geranium plant planted in the ground. A weed kept coming up and I couldn’t get to the root of it. After watching your videos, I was brave enough to dig up the entire plant, wash off the roots and saw the weed was entangled in the root of the geranium. I was able to easily remove the big weed and replant the geranium. It’s so much happier now! Thank you for teaching me. Lakewood CA
I think it depends on the plant. My birds nest fern has gotten HUGE & is really thriving. It’s in this very same pot & has been since the day I purchased it
I've brought some self-watering thingies for my indoor trees after several died because they like to stay wet and we have had super high heat where I am. So balancing keeping them wet and general life with several extra need house members, I just couldn't keep up.I mourn my loss, but hope I can save my others. I will not, however, be using them on any of my other plants because most things hate it. Freaks me out how so many places are so hype about them when very few plants can realistically tollerate constant wet...
Lmao I must’ve gotten lucky because ive bought that SAME Aglaonema from that SAME pot in Lowe’s about 6 months ago, never changed the pot or soil, and it’s still growing strong!! ❤
I went to home depot the other day and the succulent and cactus plants section they watered everything and left plants drowning and soaked. Literally there was a plant that you can't get water in the tubes or it'll rot they were all rotting and had algea and mush. I felt so bad cause they are just going to throw all those plants away at the end of the week.
Do you do live videos with Q and A ? Because girl I have so many questions about my plants and their behavior 😉 I need you to come over and look at my 37 plants and diagnose them !
I bought polly alocasia in self watering plant and was excited because I was worried it would get too dry (I’m bad at remembering) and it’s been a life saver my Polly loves it- I am nervous tho bc I don’t let it dry out in between but it seems to be thriving as of now.
Oh wow! I was just given a few of these from the recycled section at the store. I wasn’t sure how I felt about them so I didn’t install the wicks and basically have them as cute outer pots.
I’ve always thought this about the self watering pots. I never bought one because I just knew it was a bad idea. I like to be able to control the soil and water etc
I love those self watering pots for my orchids in leca. Leca doesn’t break down over time like regular medium so it makes the self watering setup totally viable. It doesn’t work so well with organic potting mediums.
Yea. I've been trying to make my one store-bought pot work, but the problem I find, is that you can't see when water has pooled to the bottom. I made a similar contraption (pretty basic), but used translucent containers I had that stack perfectly to leave about an inch underneath for a sort of reservoir
I work at a big box store. Im the person that waters the plants. The biggest issue is they dont teach about what plants to water every day and what plants not to. I take care of all the self watering pots, and I've been lucky to keep them alive for a long time. But i learned a trick with those pots. Never add water to the pots until it's completely dry in the bottom and not until the soil has dried. I also dont fill it with too much with water just enough to the top of the little window. I learned this from watching your videos about watering plants, and it's worked really well.
The thing I hate with the big box stores is that they HAVE to have their plants in a decorative pot and charge you more for it. Ma'am, I've got better pots at home, please just let me buy the plant at a decent price.
i work at a garden center for a big chain store and sometimes we receive those plants with the planters broken so i would mark them down which made them reasonably priced. turns out i’m not allowed to do that anymore though they still want us selling plants with no pot for full price
I loooove my self watering pots! If you’re reading this and newer to them but want to try them out, I started with the kind that’s made of clay! There’s the pot you put your plant in that’s unglazed clay, sometimes a Terra cotta, and that sits in another reservoir which you put water in. If not that kind (they’re pricey), try one that has a reservoir underneath the pot that the plant is in DOESNT TOUCH, but instead you put a cotton wicking string in the pot the plant is sitting in and it sucks up water as your plant needs it. I find the kind that has a basket that sits a little in the water is way harder to maintain and it’s super easy to under or over water. 90% of my plants are in self watering pots-either store bought or DIY-and it’s the only reason they’re still alive. 😂 the only ones that aren’t are my snake plant (bc they like to be neglected and dry out) and my plants on moss poles (which I’ll be converting to self watering poles soon!).
Since i was unfamiliar with the concept of self watering pots and the first one i bought didnt have any water in it, i thought it was a weird cover pot and used it like that 😂the plant is still thriving
I exclusively use self-watering pots and/or pots with trays underneath. I go through and fill all the trays about once a week or so, the soil takes up the moisture on its own. I allow 3-4 days between the trays drying out before refilling.
Yea I had to learn this the hard way when buying my first plant a couple of months ago. They had a zz plant in that EXACT pot. Again, it was my first time buying plants, so within a week I had root rot
The only plants I keep in self-watering pots right now are my spider plants and my inch plant. They are in the sort of self-waterer that use a cotton rope to draw small amounts of water up into the soil and I always make sure to let them stay dry for a few days before refilling when they do run out. Ideally I'll refill the reservoir when the plants juuuust start to droop a little. Most plants I wouldn't dare to keep in a self-watering system just because it's so hard to control.
True. This was me with self watering pots, and I almost ended up with root rot for my poor African violet. Yes, they are helpful, but need to make sure that the roots and soil have the time to completely dry out before you refill the self watering pot
I got a self watering pot but it has 2 layers. One that slips in to another and I use it for orchids but this way. I drill a lot of holes on the inner part, put the orchid in and when it is watering time, put water in the outer layer and the inner slips right in pushing water inside the medium and towards orchid roots. I leave the water in for maybe 3 minutes, drain the water out and assemble the pot again. Worked very well to have a nice looking pot for orchids.
😂 I have that same plant and pot. I found mine at Lowe's on a clearance rack. I put a flat screwdriver on the stove and burned 6 drainage holes in the bottom of the pot and potted the plants in another pot. I had to clip the basket pots off the roots as well.
Bought this same plant and it immediately started dying until I walked by it one day and saw the ring around the roots. I cut the plastic off and repotted it and now it is beautiful!! I even got a second one as a rescue because it was suffocating!
I recently bought some self-watering pots more because they were on sale for $2 each, decent size and I plan to treat them like regular pots and drill into the bottom tray (effectively removing the self-watering function). If I ever want to use that feature I can plug up the hole with extra plugs I have from a previous pot. I think this can work for those of us wanting to avoid throwing away things that are still technically usable / if we're on a tight budget.
I have quite a few plants in pots that I've made into self watering. Interestingly, I just purchased a plant yesterday, a ZZ, in a pot just like that😆. I'm planning to separate it into 2 or 3 plants and place them into one of my self watering pots in a few days, letting it adjust in it's new climate.
It's heartbreaking to see the condition of plants in big box stores! Please consider supporting local and native plant nurseries. It's a great way to improve plants' well-being and contribute to preserving native species
That happened to me recently. I brought two beautiful plants home and didn’t realize they were holding water. They were dead within a week. I blew it. Then I realize they were sitting without drainage.
After a through soaking I always repot store bought plants. They are usually always root bound and some are planted in plain ol cocoa fiber that will become hydrophobic and actually rob the plants of moisture over time.
Thank you for your Channel. Started to repott all my plants because of your Informations and hope they gonna get better now because they were more like in a surviving fight than just beeing Alive 😅 Edit: what soil do you use?
Oh noooooo, I bought a ZZ plant in that exact type of pot! At least it was only $5 and totally salvageable. Now I've got three separate big juicy rhizomes with a few stems each. I'll definitely be tossing the pot now 😅
I just got some plants from a store and I'll like to give it a try to rescue them, any tips Fiddle leaf fig: green big leaves but top is all bent Cactus: it's still green, no root rot and is soft
I recently bought a peperomia and it was drowning in water when I first got it from trader Joe's. I got out of the car and thought this doesn't feel right... I poured out a ton of water and then shook the whole thing to get the extra water out. I was so sad for the plant. I didn't water it for like 2 weeks to make sure it dries out properly.
Orchids and Hoyas love self-watering pots but cactus and some succulents hate this method since it requires dry soil for a few day after the the last watering
I worked summers in the garden center in one of the big chain department stores. I like to take care of plants without killing them, but the management makes you water them every day. You have to see plants rotting because they are too wet.
I find some of my plants like a self watering pot, the difference i think is that i keep the water level very low ( so there's room between the bottom of the inner pot and the water level )
my mom just got me one from DG! i thought it was the neatest thing ever too!! 😂 it’s been sitting on my bookshelf next to all my plants with nothing in it for a week.. shoot, now i’m scared 😅
Hi thanks, Love my plants. But I love to go backpacking in July/August as well. :| So I went mostly with rock gardens and succulents.... it worked well, but many fatalities with the others... My beautiful "City Lights" Dahlia... died. Hoping her tubers will live. Bless.
When i re-potted my mums orchid there were TWO nursery pots embedded in the roots 😩 it's now in a much bigger pot and sending out roots uncontrollably 😂 flowered beautifully too, poor thing was dyed blue when i bought it! Blue!
I use self watering pots for certain plants like peace lilly and arrow head plants and the ones that are ALWAYS thirsty. But most plants aren't happy in these. I wait untill the soil is dry, then I fill the reservoir with water.
Thank you!! I thought this was Great.!! Call it Wick & Grow. Well yes, my plant/plants definatly were drowning. As a beginer, maybe a little further along now, I gotta have more faith in myself & my skills. Thanks Krystel. I try staulking you every day*lol*😅
I only use them for propagations. I testing it out since I heard plants in pin lowers pest rest and realized very quickly that I absolutely hated them. I’d rather deal with a random pest now and then than killing my plant quickly.
My zz was in one of those pots, as soon as i could i dumped the little water that was in it, but i kept the pot to use as a cover pot instead of being a self watering pot.
I rescued that same plant from lowes in a self watering pot. I had to do the same thing, I have it rerooting in just water, I used the self watering pot for my peace lilly. I love Agleonemas and I hate seeing them suffer
