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What is "deep watering" for a potted plant?

terry bartinson zone 3a NorthWest Ontario C

8 years ago

Hi all. May be a silly question...but. Been reading about watering potted plants and often see "DEEP WATER". For example, reading about Marigolds it says.."Let top 1"-2" 's of pot dry then deep water." Can you tell me what "deep watering" is for potted plants. I mean the pots are opaque and I can't see how much I'm putting in. Any suggestions, rules of thumb or techniques for this?

Might this be one way to do it? Just add water very slowly until the water flows over the top of the pot?

Thanks for any replies.

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Comments (3)

hc mcdole
8 years ago
Deep watering (to me) means saturating the soil whether dunking the pot in a tub of water until no more air bubbles surface or watering until you see a stream of water coming out the drain hole(s). In summer I do deep watering when I first bring the plants outside and after that when I see the pot is unusually dry but in winter I go very light on watering house plants due to lower temperatures and the mere fact most plants have a rest period or for some begonias a dormant period - no water.

Plants can be so picky at times, but if you want happy plants, give them what they want.

Indoors, a humidity cover helps tremendously (these photos are from 3 days ago)

Outdoors, the humidity is usually high in summer but the pots may still need water.
terry bartinson zone 3a NorthWest Ontario C thanked hc mcdole
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
8 years ago
Terry, I'll add a few thoughts about container watering, too. It's a real mystery for lots of people.

You've aldeady figured out that proper watering is a matter of volume of water in combination with frequency. It's important that we flood the entire soil column on watering day until we are certain that there are no dry pockets remaining. In some cases, we need to drench the container more than once to get the job done. Soaking might be necessary.

The tricky part is knowing when to water again. Frequency depends upon many factors: time of year, type of plant, texture of the medium, ambient temperature and relative humidity, type of container, and more.

So many people offer their containerized plants little sips of water, which is never appropriate.
terry bartinson zone 3a NorthWest Ontario C thanked rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
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terry bartinson zone 3a NorthWest Ontario C
Original Author
8 years ago
Hi guys, thanks for taking the time. Sorry for the delay getting back to you. Your comments have been helpful. We have many pots of quite the variety of sizes. The other day I made notes on how much water I put into each pot. As I poured into each pot I counted and when I thought I put enough into each pot I stopped pouring (counting). If water didn't come out of the bottom of each pot in a few minutes or so I poured (counted) more until water did come out the bottom. So I have a good idea now how much to put into each pot.

As you said rhizo, the tricky part is when to water again. Since this deep watering we've had quite a bit of rain. The pots are still saturated. What do I do now...wait until the top 1"-2" of a pot are dry (according to my moisture meter) then saturate again.

Thanks again for your earlier comments.