Folks, I have finally found the single most important piece of information in my entire career as a neglectful plant mother. Upon learning this I have discovered that plants are some of the most difficult bastards to care for, but alas, the believed ideas about overwatering of plant babies is just a massive myth.
Yep, give your plant child as much water as you goddamn want, they’ll never hate you for it. Turns out overwatering has nothing to do with the amount of water, but how often. Let me repeat, all those times you were careful with how much water you were putting onto your plants means nothing (unless you own like a cactus or something).
You can quite literally put your plant bub under a running tap, let the water overflow, and the little green child of yours will love you for it. When the soil dries up, that’s when you water it again. Any watering that is done a few hours after the initial splash, while the soil is still wet, will be considered as too much.
Don’t believe me? Watch this viral video from TikTok user @cayleyspivey below, and learn a lesson or two about plant care.
@cayleyspivey learned it from plant tiktok #plants #planttiktok #succulents
If that wasn’t enough to convince you that your understanding of plant care has been built upon a hill of lies, a bunch of TikTok users sounded off in the comments section of that video with even more tips and tricks. Here are just some of my faves that have helped me, a negligent plant mother, understand more about how to water plants.
“Yesss but don’t water on top of a succulent or cacti! Water directly [into the soil] and avoid getting the top of the plant wet. That can cause rot fast,” said one user.
“If your soil is packed too tight water might not even reach the roots. Use a chopstick to poke holes into the soil!” said another. Now, this is the kind of ingenuity that I would never have thought of.
“Be careful with using tap water because some plants are sensitive to minerals in some tap water,” wrote another user. This one blew my mind because I… had no idea?? Turns out however that there are very few plants that don’t like tap water, so you should be very safe in your overwatering endeavours.
Naturally, you need to know what requirements your plants have when it comes to watering. In about 90% of cases, this watering trick will work, but if your little buddy says “no water please”, then maybe don’t go overflooding it in your sink.
