Waterloo

Plants Have Preferences The key is to match plants' needs with your conditions, 

and to help them get established. It's good to know where to put what kind of 

plant, knowing what a plant needs will allow it to thrive.

One sign that they are thriving is their physical health

Succulents like aloe do not need a lot of water, while lucky bamboo practically 

lives in water; but these are both very different plants from quite different 

regions of the world. Pay attention to your plant's preferences when potting it; 

if your plant likes water, try using a water absorbent additive like prelate or 

perhaps vermiculite. Alternatively, if you plant needs good drainage, you may 

want to add more sand or rocks to your mix.

Before I knew much about proper soil mixes, my over-watering habit led to the 

idea of me putting a tube from an air pump into the soil of a potted plant. 

Experimenting and practice taught me how to over-water my plants less often, but 

the plant really loved getting extra oxygen to it's roots.

Another habit I've developed for checking soil moisture is sticking bamboo 

skewers into the soil (away from the roots of course) and pulling it out, then 

checking it like you would with a dipstick to check a car's oil levels. I've 

used these long, thing dowels to something help dry up over-watered soil by 

creating a small hole in the soil for air to flow through.

I'm not completely certain how to water a plant according to the size of it's 

container (or maybe the age of the plant). Equations exist to help you figure 

out how much to water. I'll fight my nature and attempt to perform math, in the 

future I'll post my findings. Perhaps I should post some sort of disclaimer 

ahead of time?