Quality Watering Techniques

Container Heights
Whenever growing media is placed in a pot and watered, it will be subject to a physical phenomenon called a water table.

Water will drain from the growing media through gravitational forces, but due to the cohesive properties of water, the pore spaces at the bottom of the mixture will always remain saturated with water.

This will happen in all containers, and it is not determined by the amount of drainage holes, in fact the container may not even have a bottom. Only air porosity (the type of growing media, and how loosely it is packed in the container ) will determine how much water is retained.

The size of the water table will be the same irrespective of container height. In fact, in smaller containers (plug trays) the water saturation will represent a much larger portion of the entire containers capacity. This can be beneficial as most seeds require quite moist conditions to germinate, but water frequency should be less than in larger pots.

As the plants grow on, species which do best in consistently moist conditions can be planted in shallow containers or pans (e.g. azalea pots) and plants which require very good drainage can be planted in taller containers.

Watering Methods
Watering methods can chiefly be divided into two types: top watering or bottom watering. Top watering is done by pouring water on top of the soil and let it drain through to the bottom. Bottom watering involves standing pots in a pot of water and allow the capillary forces to pull up moisture to the top of the soil surface.

Top watering will ensure that all growing medium is thoroughly wet even in tall containers (higher than 6") and can be the preferred method for watering plants with primarily surface roots (tuberous begonias, for example). When this watering type is practiced, care should be taken to avoid wetting the foliage which can lead to disease development. Molds may also start to grow on the surface of the media. After water has drained, the pot's saucer should be emptied to avoid standing water.

Bottom watering uses capillary action to pull water up from below. Just as much air is pulled into the growing medium as with top watering, and bottom watering it is actually better at maintaining air porosity. This method is usually the preferred watering method for home growers as it is easy to add water to

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