How to Plant House Plants that Need Well Draining Soil

You, like many other young American men and women, have probably brought home a plant intending to brighten up a space only to find out that within a few weeks, it is doing the opposite—because it’s dead. Well, never fear, the leading cause of death among house plants today is drowning, and I have provided you with knowledge and a simple, inexpensive solution!

If you don’t like reading, check out the video:

Remember when your plant instructions said, “Needs well-draining soil”? It really meant it. Plants are not like cookies, if you skimp on one part of the instructions they don’t have a very good chance of still turning out okay.

What happens when you water a plant that doesn’t live in a pot with a hole, is that all the water just sits at the bottom. Forever. There’s no where for it to go. The roots of the pot are then completely saturated with water for eternity to the point that they literally rot. Your plant will then have what is called Root Rot and it usually cannot be revived once it has this—because without roots, your plant cannot soak up the nutrients it needs to live. You need a drainage solution if you want your plant to stand a chance.

Current solutions include purchasing a planter that has a hole on the bottom of it to allow the water to drain out. The cons of this solution is if your plant is an inside plant, then you’re going to have to put something underneath it, like a plastic container, so the water doesn’t drain out onto the ground. Since people normally have plants in their house to provide pleasing aesthetic, adding plastic usually hinders that effort. Another solution is to fill the pot with rocks first before adding the soil and the plant so the water drains down into the rocks. That “solution” is actually a myth and if it’s full of rocks, the water isn’t even going to drain down into them at all.

It is probably for those reasons that people usually just ignore the drainage instruction and hope for the best with whatever trendy cute planting device they have.

Here’s what I do!

Go to Lowe’s. Find the plant saucers. These are the plastic saucers that you use to put underneath pots to collect drained water. Look for the heavy duty deep saucers or the ones for hanging plants.

I cut drainage slits in these saucers and plant my plants directly inside of them. Then I place the plant filled saucer inside the pot. This allows for the water to drain out into the pot you would have otherwise planted your plant directly in.

The benefits of doing this is that you can use ALL the trendy pots on a stand or natural woven pots you want without drilling a hole in them, putting a plastic water collection device under them, or worrying about your plant dying because you ignored the instructions! The saucer sits right on the edge of the pot so you can then lift it up and take it out in order to drain the water.

Doing it this way also allows for you to use the water uptake method to hydrate your plants. If you buy a plant that has a built in string (see picture below), which has a purpose of sucking up the water and taking it to the roots, you can put a cup of water inside of the pot and put the strings through the holes you cut into the cup of water.

Below is an example where I used this solution with a trendy pot on a stand, the water sucking fibers, and a cup of water. Instead of cutting slits in a deep saucer I used a skinny saucer and cut a hole and just stuck the plant straight in the hole. I don’t do this typically though because plants usually want to be planted into something with more space than what you purchased it in.

Your average terra cotta pot featuring it’s drainage hole

“Needs well-draining soil”

Deep plastic plant saucer from Lowe’s

It’s kind of hard to see but I cut out three of the plastic indentation spokes on this saucer, which is where the water will drain out of.

So overall, this is a great solution because it doesn’t take away from the overall aesthetic of the plant in its pot—which is the whole point of it in the first place. Circular planters most often come in various even numbered sizes (8, 10, 12 inch) and you will find correlating sized saucers in the stores. If they fit in perfectly, you can’t even tell the plant isn’t planted directly in the planter! Obviously the downside would be having a fancy square shaped planter or something like that and I’m still working on the best solution for hanging plants. :)