Hi, I love your blog and all of your plants and I was hoping for some random advice. When I water my plants, the water always sits on top of the soil I use and I have to kinda mix it in somehow. Is there some advice you would give to make it absorb more easily or a soil or anything? I'm worried about the sitting water rotting bottom leaves.
Hi there! Random advice I know how to answer! Hot dog it’s a good day. :)
The soil you’re using probably has a lot of peat moss in it. Peat moss is used in a lot of soil mixes because it can hold a lot of water for a long time but when it dries out it becomes hydrophobic and doesn’t like to reabsorb water unless it’s soaked in it for awhile. That’s great for normal plants that never really like to dry out, not so great for succulents that need to dry out between waterings.
It’s best to find a succulent soil mix that doesn’t have peat moss (or sphagnum moss) listed in it’s ingredients. But I know that can be hard to find for some people depending on their area. You almost always want to cut commercial succulent soil mixes half/half with more perlite or pumice, that will help the water drain through it faster and break up the peat moss from compacting around roots. Still, I know even with a half perlite/pumice blend there’s usually a pool of water sitting on top for awhile (especially the first time you water). You can let it sit and eventually it will soak in... or you can try bottom watering!
You sit your pots in a bowl/tub of water, with the water line at least half way up to the soil line (but higher will make this go faster), and wait for the soil to absorb the water through it’s bottom drainage hole. Once the top of the soil looks wet (takes maybe 10 minutes or less? Depends on how big your pot is and if your water is high enough) you can pull it out, let it drain fully, and return it to it’s usual spot. You will see the water line in your bowl go down as the soil absorbs it, I just fill it back up to where I had it (usually to the soil line as that’s quickest) and let it keep sitting till it’s time to come out.
As for sitting water rotting bottom leaves, the only solution I have to that is to put a layer of rock on top of the soil, a top dressing, to keep the leaves from touching the moist soil. When you water the top dressing will dry out pretty fast and they can be decorative as well as functional. That top layer can be literally anything as long as it’s not porous, I’ve seen people use tumbled glass that looks really neat!
Having a top dressing can also help with floating perlite problems, perlite is very light and if you’re top watering it likes to float up and move around! Perlite also discolors in the sun, so the top dressing helps to hold it down and hide it when it turns a kinda gross brown color. Floating perlite isn’t a big problem with bottom watering, a top dressing can make it hard to see if the top of the soil is wet (you can move it of course, or learn to tell when your pots are full of water by weight instead of sight), but the top dressing does help hold down the rest of the soil. When peat moss compacts and is dry putting it in a tub of water makes it float, I’ve had plants pop up out of their pots when I tried to bottom water them, a top dressing holds them down so they can’t float out. If I don’t have a top dressing on them I have to put the water line low enough where they don’t float, let it adsorb a bit, then raise the water line again once it’s stopped wanting to float.
Sometimes you just can’t bottom water, however. Like my prop trays are plastic and can’t be bottom watered or the entire thing would float, and I don’t want to put rocks on top of my tiny props to hold them down. So I’m stuck with top watering. You just have to be patient and let it absorb, then go back multiple times with your water to make sure you’ve got a good soak.
