Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Sorry to confuse, but technically you are overwatering the bottom, underwatering the top and watering the container too often.
Imagine your container is a reservoir. The level of the lake inside that container is called the water table. When you began this and were watering to runoff each time, that was correct... but watering again when the top only had dried out, just added to the water table that was still sitting there. Since the lower half was still saturated, it didn't take a lot of water to reach runoff when you watered too early, since all you really needed to do was water the top.
The praise position is how the plant reacted before the lower roots needed to protect themselves, and from that point on, the plant was able to use less and less water. The plant with damaged lower roots could never again raise the water pressure enough to raise up the leaves as you saw it do in the beginning. You could see that the plant seemed to need less water in the amount of water it took to reach runoff... and you assumed that the plant was not needing as much and started to taper down, but even so, that water table just continued to rise between each watering to runoff, never allowing the lower roots to see oxygen.
No, the plants will not die from you drying out the roots. You will think you are surely killing your plant, but until it actually droops over at the trunk, it still has water. You will think your container is as dry as the sahara desert, yet your plant will seem to be happy. It will take some effort to change this mindset, but to grow a weed you have to be a little bit cruel to be kind. This is a weed, and it thrives in adverse conditions and does not do so well when pampered. Look up the lift a pot method, and realize that this is a thing, because it works. You absolutely must establish a clear wet/dry cycle with this weed in order to get maximum growth and you absolutely can not drown the lower roots.
Imagine your container is a reservoir. The level of the lake inside that container is called the water table. When you began this and were watering to runoff each time, that was correct... but watering again when the top only had dried out, just added to the water table that was still sitting there. Since the lower half was still saturated, it didn't take a lot of water to reach runoff when you watered too early, since all you really needed to do was water the top.
The praise position is how the plant reacted before the lower roots needed to protect themselves, and from that point on, the plant was able to use less and less water. The plant with damaged lower roots could never again raise the water pressure enough to raise up the leaves as you saw it do in the beginning. You could see that the plant seemed to need less water in the amount of water it took to reach runoff... and you assumed that the plant was not needing as much and started to taper down, but even so, that water table just continued to rise between each watering to runoff, never allowing the lower roots to see oxygen.
No, the plants will not die from you drying out the roots. You will think you are surely killing your plant, but until it actually droops over at the trunk, it still has water. You will think your container is as dry as the sahara desert, yet your plant will seem to be happy. It will take some effort to change this mindset, but to grow a weed you have to be a little bit cruel to be kind. This is a weed, and it thrives in adverse conditions and does not do so well when pampered. Look up the lift a pot method, and realize that this is a thing, because it works. You absolutely must establish a clear wet/dry cycle with this weed in order to get maximum growth and you absolutely can not drown the lower roots.
