Always remember our feathered friends

By John Warrington

The trouble with an automatic watering system starts when you take your plants off it and start watering by conventional ways, say using fresh water in a watering can. It’s rather like taking the baby off the breast and putting it straight onto cornflakes. Plants have to be weaned off an automatic system to allow for proper root hair development. If weaning does not occur, your plants will not be able to manage the changeover from a period of plentiful supply to having to wait until you get home from the office, by which time they will have begun to suffer. Some people cater for this and water their plants generously before they go to the office in an attempt to give them sufficient moisture for the day. This can often drown them, especially if they are in soil-less compost and in plastic pots when drainage is a problem. Better to pot them first into small clay pots using crocks in the base of the pots for drainage, and use more traditional potting compost. This ensures straightaway that they have proper drainage and can start forming root hairs. The other option of course is to plant them out as soon as possible to help them start forming root hairs, but they will have to be in the shade.