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Potted plants are such an easy way to spruce up your outdoor space. Whether you have a large yard, or a small outdoor space or patio, you can really transform the outdoors. Now, I live in Colorado which is a very dry climate. In order to keep my pots flourishing I have to water my pots just about every day. Even watering everyday, my hanging baskets and the planter boxes that I hang on the railing of our porch get dried out so quickly. That is until I discovered the most amazing hack! Keep reading and I will show you how to keep your potted plants from drying out.
Have you ever noticed that when you water your hanging baskets, the water comes streaming out of the bottom as fast as you are pouring it into the top? The plants and flowers don’t even have a chance to absorb any of the water before it’s gone. You need to keep that moisture inside the plant to allow the roots to absorb the water.
Choose the right planter
Certain types of planters are better built to maintain moisture. Moss hanging baskets hold in a lot more moisture the plastic hanging baskets. They can be a bit more expensive, but your flowers will last longer and you will lose less water so it’s a good trade off.
My mom just did her hanging baskets with Spanish moss and they look so good. I can’t wait to see how great they look later in the summer when they are all filled in. Let me know if you have interest in how that process works and I will take some pictures and put together a post. Just leave a comment below.
Best Hack Ever
Okay folks, whether you are using moss planters or standard plastic planters I have the best kept secret to holding in moisture! Are you ready… DIAPERS! Yep, I line my pots with diapers to help hold in moisture.
When you think about it, it’s pretty genius. What are diapers designed to do? Hold in moisture!
A few diapers at the bottom of your planters, before you put the dirt in, will last all summer. In fact, I just replanted my planters last weekend and took out last year’s diapers and they were in pretty good shape.
My daughter has just finished potty training so luckily we still had some diapers on hand. I used Target brand diapers because that’s what I had on hand. The size and brand doesn’t really matter as long as you cover the entire bottom of you planter.
You’ll notice the first time you water your hanging baskets or your railing pots that water does not come rushing out the bottom. Right on.
Now water will slowly escape out the bottom but that’s good! You don’t want to drown your plants but you want to give them enough time do absorb the water that they need.
Once you’ve tried this hack on how to keep potted plants from drying out I’d love to hear what you think! Be sure to leave me a comment and let me know how it went.
New to all of this and found your article really helpful! Hopefully, I will be able to keep all my plants alive this summer!
Good luck! Let me know how it goes!
I love this logical hack!
Huh, such a weird gardening hack, but it sounds like it works! I’ll have to consider this for my own plants, to save them from my black thumb.
It is so weird but I swear it works! Good luck!