Tiffany,
I can't stop over-watering either. But I think that is a GOOD thing, once we make our mix drain well enough to let the water OUT of the air channels so that air can diffuse back IN. I like screened bark nuggets, and I screen them myself, either from "small bark nuigget" bags. or "medium bark mulch", if I can find an unusually clean and dry "mulch" product.
>> There's also water chemicals which can accumulate to toxic levels, and alter soil PH,
My theory is that fertilizer will also accumulate unless you flush water all the way
through the pot and out the bottom. If you have pH paper or a meter, you can add just a little hydrated lime to a few gallons of water, until it is just slightly basic, like pH 7.5 or 7.8. If you water with that once in a while, you can counter a tendency to get progressively more acid.
One thing thqat will encourage a shallow pot to drain out All the way, even removing perched water from the bottom inch of a fine mix, is to set the pot on a fuzzy water-absorbent mat like a towel, folded Tee short, cotton flannel, or maybe a water-absorbent felt (acrylic?).
If the towel touches the soil through the hole, water will flow from the soil to the mat until the mat is as water-logged as the soil in the bottom of the pot. That's why you should let the towel or flannel hang down below the pot, so that water will flow from pot to towel to low point of towel, and then drip off or evaporate.
http://garden.org/ideas/view/R...
Having a saucer under a pot is the very reverse of this. Watering carries excess, nasty salts down into the saucer where they become even more concentrated through evaporation before the plants suck them back into the soil. I feel so sorry for the roots in the bottom of a pot sitting in a saucer!
I wouldn't want to drink that stuff after it perked through the soil 5-10 times!
Like forever adding more water to a fishbowl, but never changing the water.
Disclaimer:
My only experience with potted plants comes from a few years of fooling around indoors, decades ago. More recently, tiny cells in seedling trays and Dixie cups.
