How to Use Self Watering Pots: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
We often hear from people who want to learn how to use self watering pots. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll teach you how self-watering pots work, explore a bit of the science behind them and finally we’ll show you how to use them. We’ll take you through the self watering process as we try to answer some of the most common questions that we get about our planters and self watering technology.
If you’re the type who prefers things short and sweet, you can click here to see an interactive of the entire process, or here for a video.
At any point, if you would like to contact us, we’d be glad to answer any questions and to guide you through the process of creating an online quote.
How Do Plants Get their Food? A Brief Refresher
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how self watering planters work, we want to give you a quick refresher course on what exactly plants do with water and why it is needed. This will help explain why self-watering planters are far more efficient than traditional planters.
Self watering planters have been around now for a couple of decades, but their popularity has risen dramatically in recent years because of their cost and water saving abilities. As we learned in school, plants require water for the process of photosynthesis. For those who need a refresher, photosynthesis is the process of turning sunlight into energy (specifically glucose). This sugar is then transported to the rest of the plant and used for cellular processes, growth, storage, etc. Plants pull almost all of the water that they use up from their roots. This water moves from a more concentrated area (the soil), into a less concentrated area (the plant root) through the processes of diffusion and osmosis.
While some plants can absorb some water through their leaves, by far, the most common method for plants to obtain water is to pull it up from the soil through their root system. As this happens, water pressure builds up in the roots, in effect pumping the water up the xylem vessels and eventually into the plant’s leaves. The leaves then use the water and sunlight in the photosynthesis process to create glucose, in effect feeding themselves. To read more, we found this article on tree physiology interesting!
When people normally water their plants, they use a hose or watering can and they water their plants from above. While this generally gets the job done, a serious amount of water is wasted, and the soil often doesn’t get the correct amount of saturation. Plants are frequently over or under-watered. Most leaves actually repel water from their surface and the water runs off wastefully onto concrete or decking. Next time you water a plant in a traditional planter, take a look at the amount of water that is actually spilled on your deck or on the concrete surrounding the planter. It is a surprisingly substantial amount.
In the traditional method of watering a plant, the top portion of the soil gets saturated, but often the water doesn’t fully penetrate to all of the plant’s roots. It’s often a guessing game to determine how much water to feed the soil. Often, the top of the soil looks saturated, so we stop watering. However, the smallest roots, often deeper in the soil, are actually the most efficient at bringing water into the roots. The amount of photosynthesis that can occur is a direct result of how much water can be pulled up into the tree. If watering is done from a hose or watering can, frequent re-watering is required as much of the water evaporates, spills off, or gets used quickly by the plant, and never fully penetrates down to the tiniest roots. It is much more of a guessing game as to how much water is needed.
As we will explain in the next section, in a self watering planter, this uncertainty and wastefulness is removed. The watering occurs from the planter itself, and this dramatically improves the efficiency of the entire process, delivering water from the bottom up!
How to Use Self Watering Pots: A Brief Summary
As we mentioned in the previous section, self watering pots do things differently. Unlike traditional pots and planters, self watering pots hydrate the plants from the roots, saving water, time and energy. Self watering planters dramatically reduce the amount of time and water needed to ensure healthy plants and flowers.
Moisture Control
Instead of spraying plants from the top, with a self watering pot, you simply fill the water reservoir with a hose, sometimes as infrequently as once every couple weeks. The frequency of watering depends on the planter size and the amount of greenery in your planter. After the reservoir is full, you are done, and the natural processes of capillary action and osmosis take over.
Water from the reservoir slowly moves its way up the wicking chamber into the soil and then into the root system. The natural processes of science take over and the water works its way up the xylem vessels of your plants. Water does not evaporate from the planter because it is not exposed to the elements. This not only saves on time, but also the amount of water that you use will be dramatically reduced.
More Benefits of Self Watering
As self watering planters deliver water directly to the root system, this greatly reduces the chances of fungus and disease to the leaves of the plant. Over-watering is not an issue as the overflow drain expels excess water. Simply fill the reservoir once every couple of weeks and then sit back and enjoy watching your plants prosper.
Fill Port and Plug
All of our planters are made with a simple fill port and durable plug. Simply use a garden hose to fill your planter when the water level gets low.
Wicking Chamber
Our all-natural wicking system is free of any moving parts or synthetic wicking materials prone to mold and replacement. As the potting mix dries out, it pulls water from the reservoir, ensuring that the plants receive a steady supply of moisture without the risk of overwatering.
Large Water Reservoir
Never worry about over or under-watering again. Our large-capacity water reservoirs provide consistent moisture levels for several weeks. Plants receive the right amount of water when they need it, leading to stronger roots and better overall plant health. Plant food can be added directly to the reservoir for a continuous flow of nutrients.
Insulating Double Wall
Constructed using UV-protected commercial-grade polyethylene. Our 4 season planters are known for their durability and resistance to fading, cracking, and other weather-related damage. No winterizing is required. 10-year Warranty
Overflow Drain
Prevents flooding and root rot.
Click or touch a number to learn more about each part of a self watering pot.
Or watch the video below.
Self Watering Pots: Summary
Hopefully what you have read here has taught you how to use self watering pots and why they are beneficial to a business or municipality.
To summarize, plants need water to grow and to be healthy. Traditional watering of plants is fine for most gardeners and home owners, but it is more wasteful on larger scales for a variety of reasons. Self watering planters make the watering process more efficient and they help you save money and water. While more expensive to purchase up front, the extra cost quickly pays for itself in lower water bills and labour costs. Planters can go weeks without any additional water and time can be spent elsewhere. Not only do self-watering planters produce healthier, more lush plants, they also help businesses and municipalities save money, time and water.
At Urbanscape, our commercial quality planters have large reservoirs that can last up to three weeks. Even in dry settings, you will be able to leave your plants for weeks. Obviously, each setting will vary and you will need to keep an eye on the water reservoir at first. But once you get the schedule down, you’ll be amazed at how much water you are saving.
Our planters are not only visually appealing, they are sturdy, weather-resistant and they are all guaranteed for 10 years against weather related cracking or fading.
So if you are ready to take the next step towards purchasing your first self watering planters, you can start by looking at our products. You can get a free quote request online, and now you can see the prices for all of our planters directly on the planter pages.
We’re here to answer any further questions!
Drip irrigation
Do a quick search for ‘best self watering planters’ and you will see that there are many options out there for self watering planters. At Urbanscape, our planters consistently rank as some of the best self watering planters available on the market. With nearly ten years of operation under our belts, we have established ourselves as one of the leaders in the industry.
One of the factors that places Urbanscape amongst the best planter companies is our wide range of style options. We have listened closely to our customers needs and we have added new planter options annually.
