Transcript:
Hi, my gardening! Angels and welcome back to my channel if you’re new here. I am Jess and I’m so excited that you have joined me today. First off! Welcome officially to 2020 It’s crazy how fast the decade went by that being said. I am planning this next year’s, kind of video schedule and ideas and how I want to take this channel. So if you have any ideas, put them down in the comment section below. Now go ahead, pause the video. Do it quick, because I really want to know what your guys’s ideas are. I obviously want to make videos that you’re going to like, second off. This is going to be kind of a more talking video. That’s going to have a lot of good information appoints for you guys to take away from so. I currently have my sips by tea sitting in my cup. This one’s a green tea, very delicious, But I highly recommend using this tea subscription box. If you haven’t ever tried, it, go ahead. There’s a a coupon code for you down in the description box for you to get five dollars off your first box, so I highly recommend it. I don’t like to spend a bunch of money on teas. So this is a way that I can get up by variety while not spending a whole lot of money, so go ahead. Try that! Grab your cup of tea. Grab a snack. Whatever you want, cuz we’re gonna dive into this, and there’s gonna be a lot of material so first off. What are drainage holes? So most planters, typical planters have drainage holes, which this is just a nursery pot. This is just something that one of my plants came in and these big holes are a way for water to go through the soil and essentially escape through the bottom and they’re there for a very specific reason, and that is to help your soil dry out faster and it’s going to essentially prevent root rot from happening, which is really important and that is the number one problem that many beginners succulent growers have is rewrite. It is very easy to over nurture succulent if that makes sense, and so I think as gardeners, we like nurturing plants and we like watering them a little bit more than they would appreciate and cut of times, I suggest looking at succulents as their natural environment, and so they are a desert plant and so they like to have in terms of a watering season, a lot of water all at once, be completely soaked, and then they like to be let to dry left dry, essentially, and then after they are completely dried out. They like to get a lot of water again. So if you can try to mimic that when you’re watering your succulents, that’s going to give you the best results, and so when you have drainage holes, it’s very easy to do that, especially because a lot of us grow succulents as indoor planters and so you can completely soak the soil and all of the excess water will drain at the bottom and leave your plant and it’s going to be a lot easier to prevent root rot because that is the number one problem that people have with watering cyclins and taking care of them in the beginning, so they are very important to have, but they are not necessary and I’ll explain a little bit of what you need to do in order to make them not necessary. If you are a beginner, though I would definitely say you should stay away from pots without drainage holes. I would always try to find a planter for you to have a drainage holes because you’re already not extremely knowledgeable on how succulents look and how they work in your house. Specifically, my house is much different than a lot of your houses are going to be. I have a very dry climate. I have a crow light and so my succulents are under a direct light source 16 hours a day, and I also have several years of experience, growing these plants and understanding exactly what they need and being able to just look at them and kind of take my best guess to what’s wrong if that makes sense, whereas if you’re a brand new gardener and you haven’t grown succulents before you’re not going to have that immediate knowledge of what’s happening, and if your plant starts to rot, it might be too late once you figure it out, and you’re gonna lose that succulent. So if you are new, please take my advice and just go for a planter that has a drainage hole in it just because it’s going to make your life a lot easier and your your success rate is going to be much higher, having a pot that can actually drain now if you have been growing succulents for a while, it is completely okay to have a planter without a drainage hole because as I just mentioned, you have a little bit of experience understanding what your succulent is asking for, so I have several plants in my collection that do not have drainage holes. This is my window! Ha worth eeeh. I’ve found that my Harbor Thea’s actually love not having drainage holes years ago. When I first started this channel, I had a orange planter that had a beautiful ha berth unit and it just arrived in that planter, and if I can find a picture, I’ll include it in here, But that did not have a drainage hole and that succulent absolutely loved its environment and this one’s doing really well as well so. I’ve had him in there for months. He’s really liking it. I’ve had my orange planter Set up for years. I finally took it apart. Maybe last year, but they did really well. This bunny cactus. I can’t tip it because I have a top dressing, but you can kind of see that there’s no drainage holes in this one either. Now, obviously it’s a cactus and your water. It’s so much less than any other plant, so it’s doing also really well in a pot without drainage holes, but you can kind of grow any succulent in a pot with a drainage holes and I have. I just don’t currently have any because I just took all my planters apart, but those are the ones I currently have in pots without drainage holes, so it’s completely doable, but you do have to take a few measures in order to make sure that you’re not going to kill off your succulent, Essentially, so number one is making sure that you have really good draining soil. You want your soil to not be too thick and heavy and so your succulent can drain if it needs to, and that water is going to be able to evaporate, too, you need to be able to have good light source, and maybe some air flow something so that the water is kind of more prompted to evaporate from your soil and then also you’re not going to water these succulents as you would a normal, succulent, because as I mentioned, typically, you soak the soil and with this, I maybe give it a little water and let it sit for a few minutes and then give it a little bit more, so maybe my soil zone ever wet – down to this level, and the reason is is because your succulent’s going to be able to find that water and the soil will wick it to itself, but or the succulent will wick it to itself, but you’re not going to be rotting out your succulent, and that’s really important, because as I mentioned, it doesn’t have those holes and so there’s no way for your water to escape through the bottom if there’s a lot of excess water, and you want your soil to be able to evaporate really quickly, so if you are ever questioning whether or not, you should water, your succulent. I’d always err on the side of not watering and the way you can make sure that you’re not going to be over. Watering is making sure that the leaves are not wrinkly. That’s these are freshly watered, so they’re nice and plump, so you want to make sure that they are not that they’re going to be able to take in that water, so if they’re starting to wrinkle and crinkle and you know, look a little worse for wear. Then that’s a good indicator that they’re a little thirsty and it can take several days for them to kind of fill their leaves back in, so just be patient. Otherwise, I also stick my finger down in the soil quite as deep as I can just. Whoo, I just so I can really double-check that the soil is, in fact dry, and you want it to be bone-dry meaning no moisture whatsoever. So that’s another good way of kind of indicating that you should water your plant at that moment, and then I don’t water them any more frequently than I. Water the rest of my succulents. I just give it a little bit of water at a time. The cactus I rarely ever water. He’s just, I mean, he’s a cactus. He’s fine, but that’s kind of the main deal with that one. The reason why you would want to be able to grow in planters without strange holes is because it kind of makes your options endless. You can put them in a coffee cup. You can put them in a bowl. Whatever not being able to not having to have a drainage hole is super beneficial in terms of what your options are with planters now. I’ve seen a lot of people put charcoal or pine cones or or source and and different materials like that at the very bottom of their planter, and it’s supposed to act as a fake drainage hole for your plant, and I have a couple of thoughts on this so one. I don’t know how relevant the article was, but it was several years ago, or I read that it just kind of traps the water down there, and there’s no way of it evaporating, or there’s no way for the soil to kind of suck it up, and so the water gets trapped down there, and if your roots grow down that deep, then they’re essentially just exposed to this water, and there’s never really anywhere for it to go other than in the roots, and it leaves immediately to root rot and it’s much more risky again. I don’t know how true that was, but I’ve always stayed away from it, and I’ve never had any issues with root rot and having no drainage in my succulents. So I don’t know if you necessarily need those things. I know that people recommend them because they’re supposed to help, but I again. I’ve never used them and I haven’t for the last five years and all of my succulents that have had no drainage holes have done just fine, so in my opinion, It’s not worth the effort to put into it. I would just adjust your water watering accordingly, but that is kind of all. I have for you guys so again. If you have any questions regarding this or anything else, please comment them down below. I love answering your questions and don’t forget to give this video a big thumbs up If you found it really helpful and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel if you haven’t already because you don’t want to miss any other videos coming up, So thank you guys so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one bye.