South African succulent plants home cultivation - watering
The editor brings you the introduction of succulent plants, the home cultivation of South African succulent plants - watering, let's take a look!
Four, the pursuit of water by succulent plants
1. The status of water in the three essential elements of plant growth
The three essential elements of plant growth are sunlight, air, and water. Theoretically, water should be the last one, but for home cultivation of succulent plants, I think the control of water is more important than the other two. Everyone should have experienced that excessive or insufficient water supply can cause poor plant growth and even rot and death. Especially in the home environment, due to the small transpiration of plants, it is easy to cause the contradiction that the water will not dry after watering, and it is difficult to water thoroughly after a long interval. More often than not, the top of the potting soil is already dry, but the bottom is still wet. If you are not careful and water too much, root rot and leaf rot will follow. Of course, the soil structure also has a relationship, but in fact, as long as the supply of water is controlled well, the proportion of soil can be more random. There is an old saying that watering takes three years of skill, and it is indeed so. For home flower cultivation, the skill of watering is an important link, and for the special type of succulent plants, water control becomes even more important.
2. Watering takes three years of skill
Some time ago, I had some free time to summarize this so-called "three years of skill". Same as before, if you don't spew it out, it will be uncomfortable. How much you write is up to Laojiang, and whether you read it or not is up to you.
The beginning of the "three years of skill" is the入门 stage, the first thing to understand is "water�性", some students say "I am good at swimming, 100 meters in 10 seconds and 3, holding my breath for 8 minutes..." The Hangzhou Swimming Pool is recruiting lifeguards. I拜托 you go quickly, don't let Laojiang's talent be buried here...
(1) Water 性
Water is divided into several types, depending on its form of existence. It can be divided into surface water and rootless water. Surface water refers to all liquid water in rivers, lakes, and seas. Rootless water can be liquid water naturally condensed from rain and snow in the atmosphere, or water vapor in gaseous form, which is what we call air humidity.
Theoretically speaking, surface water has dissolved a lot of surface minerals and trace elements, so the hardness of the water is relatively high. After H2O evaporates, a large amount of无机salt will be deposited. What we usually call scale is this thing. Rootless water is the product of surface water evaporating and condensing again after cooling. Since it has abandoned a large amount of precipitated salts before evaporation, it is also called soft water. Although it also contains trace impurities (water droplets need dust in the air as the core), the content can be ignored compared to the everywhere flowing surface water.
As mentioned earlier, the osmotic pressure of the succulent roots of succulent plants is very low, and excessive salt content can cause root cell dehydration. Therefore, we say that rootless water is more suitable for灌溉 succulent plants. Some high-tech people have also analyzed the difference between surface water and rootless water from the molecular chain structure and written longer articles than Laojiang's to prove it. I wanted to quote a few paragraphs, but I was afraid that the students would fall asleep, so I gave up.
In addition, the pH value of water is also an important indicator affecting the water 性. Everyone knows about pH value. Why is "Nongfu Spring" a little sweet? Because it is weakly alkaline. The cell fluid of animals is weakly alkaline, and only the body fluid of dying animals is acidic, so people should drink weakly alkaline water. However, plants are the opposite. Most plants need acidic water. This is not to say that plants like to drink sour water, but because the waste excreted by plant roots accumulates around the roots, affecting the health of the plant. All these waste and elements that can be used by plants but must be dissolved first, rely on acidic water for dissolution. If the soil in a flowerpot is irrigated with alkaline water for a long time, all of the above will eventually cake together and become the foundation stone of the grave of this pot of flowers. Some students say, "I water my flowers with Nongfu Spring, and they are fine." This is because... this spring is not alkaline enough...
Well, the previous few paragraphs are just a knowledge point. You can understand them. In practice, I know you will still use tap water. In fact, tap water in the south is generally acidic. It's just that there are more dissolved substances in it. It can also be used to water flowers. Place it in a basin overnight before use to let the chlorine dissipate and let the water temperature approach room temperature. When you have time, let the plants get rained on and it will be okay.
(2) Watering strategy
Again, thank you all for listening to Laojiang's nonsense here. Since you have read this far, it means you have enough patience to continue reading. Those who want to smoke a cigarette can smoke, those who want to drink tea can drink tea, the following is still long~
There are no fixed rules for growing flowers. Every family has its own methods, and probably no one is convinced by anyone else. Every time Laojiang goes to visit friends, he always goes in a literary way and comes back cursing... The same is true for watering. Some people like to keep the soil dry, which is convenient for plant reproduction and better accumulation of dry matter, but the plants may not be so vibrant. Some people, however, prefer to keep the soil moist, which helps plant nutrition growth, with lush branches and leaves, but the resistance may be relatively poor. How about this, the advantages and disadvantages are in front of you, and you can choose how to grow it yourself.
Of course, whether you like it dry or wet, you still need to grasp the timing of watering. I believe that all the masters will believe in the existence of the word "timing". For succulent plants, it seems that the method of "watering when completely dry" has become a consensus. Indeed, this method is the safest method, and many students who can keep the plants alive for three years rely on this method to struggle. But think about it carefully, if everyone knows "watering when completely dry", then where does the saying "watering takes three years of skill" come from? Is it that ancient people were all of low intelligence and only summarized such a foolish method as "watering when completely dry" in 5,000 years?
The answer is of course no. "Watering when completely dry" is just a slogan口头禅 of many experts in flower magazines. These experts are afraid that others will master the core technology and抢了 their rice bowl in the future, and they are unwilling to be a diligent gardener in silence, so they came up with such a versatile word to fool everyone. Unfortunately, Laojiang has always been envious and outspoken, and has never liked people who are less intelligent than me but have a bigger presence, so I want to expose them...
"Watering when completely dry", what does "dry" mean? Is it one day or one month? Think carefully and you will know - this word is a tool of sophistry. Even for succulent plants, root dehydration will cause damage to related cell tissues. The poplar in the desert is considered drought-resistant and can grow in places where it hasn't rained for 30 years. But students may not know that from Laojiang's experience in (X-J) for several years - no matter how many years it hasn't rained in this place, wherever there are poplars, if you dig down along the roots, the soil within 5 meters is guaranteed to be wet, and the groundwater may be connected to the oasis hundreds of kilometers away. Do you think plants are fools? They are very smart~
Enlightenment! Do you also have groundwater in your pot at home? Since there is no groundwater, why do you "dry" it again? It's already very considerate of it to struggle to survive for your RMB. After all, it's not a greenhouse at home. There's earth gas and humidity in the greenhouse. Even if it's dry for half a year, the humidity in the air is enough for succulent plants with low requirements to drink. Add to that temperature differences (which will be introduced later), the so-called "dry and thorough watering" is completely another concept. Because of this, the watering strategy in the home environment needs to be specially planned.
As mentioned earlier, Vaejovis needs moisture and Thesium needs dryness. Whether moist or dry, maintaining proper moisture is necessary for home cultivation of succulent plants. If you can turn the pot over to check the soil, then when the soil below the surface of the Vaejovis pot is dry and white within 3 centimeters and the soil particles below are moist but not sticky, you can water it. For Thesium, you can also water it when the lowest 1-2 centimeters of soil (excluding the drainage layer) still has moisture. These two watering timings can ensure that the root hair on the capillary roots of the plant is not dried to death to the maximum extent without causing physiological disorders due to excessive water, and the limited nutrients can be accumulated to the maximum extent, and the plant will naturally grow better.
Talking about "timing" also means talking about the grasp of "timing". We can't turn the pot over to check every time we water. This requires not only practicing calluses and eye power in平时, but also has some tips~
Tips 1 - Weighing method: first determine your soil formula, try to use the same formula every time you pot, prepare an empty pot, fill it with completely dry soil, weigh it, record the weight, water it thoroughly, weigh it again, and record the two pieces of data. Then weigh it every day. In addition to testing the water retention of your soil, the ultimate goal is to see how many days it takes to return to the weight of the dry soil in the pot. Subtract 1-2 days from this number, and that's your watering cycle. This is what is said for Vaejovis. For Thesium, there is no need to subtract days. Of course, this method ignores the absorption and transpiration of water by plant roots. Generally, the soil with plants grows faster, so the data obtained can be compared with the weight of the pot with plants to get a more accurate watering cycle.
Tip 2 - Plant material color change method: increase the proportion of red jade in the soil. Because red jade has good water absorption and water transmission ability, and it will change color when it has a little water, it is very intuitive whether it is dry or wet. Increasing the proportion of red jade in the soil can strengthen the water transmission in the potting soil. The topsoil dries up quickly, and the moisture below will keep transmitted up until the moisture content of the soil below reaches a critical point. This critical point is often the beginning of the watering signal. It is recommended to increase the proportion of red jade soil to more than 40%, use 2-3 centimeters of pure red jade to cover the pot surface, and when the red jade on the pot surface turns light yellow and white, Vaejovis should wait at most 1 more day, and Thesium should water after 2 days. Of course, these are the data from my own soil. If you want to use this method to determine the watering cycle, you still need to adjust it according to your own soil. If you are lazy to adjust it, then just continue to listen to Laojiang's nonsense slowly. I will introduce my own soil formula later.
Despicable tips
1. Toothpick method: many people like to use this, but it is actually very easy to damage the roots growing along the pot wall, and once watered, it will rot you without商量. Disregard index 3 stars.
2. Finger probe pot method: I saw this method in an article translated by someone else before. I don't know if anyone is actually doing this. I think this method is stupid. Now everyone prefers to use granular soil, and fingers can't be inserted at all, even if they are inserted, fingers will get dirty, the soil on the pot surface will be messed up, and some valuable capillary roots floating on the surface of the pot may also be broken. It can be said that this is a completely harmful and useless method, and the index of disdain is 4 stars.
3. Knocking pot listening method: I don't want to criticize this method anymore. It's too unreliable. Unless everyone has the same hearing as Langlang, this method is even less reliable than using fingers directly. Disregard index 5 stars.
The above introduction on the cultivation of South African succulent plants at home - watering, everyone can take as a reference suggestion.