Watering your plants for their healthy growth is crucial, without that plants will not survive. This crucial thing can turn into something detrimental if not taken care of properly. When it comes to watering your plants in another medium that is very tricky to handle you can have a dilemma. The same goes for watering your plant in sphagnum moss.
The brownish moss that you find in your potted plants often is dried sphagnum moss. Dried sphagnum moss is widely used worldwide because of its moisture-holding capabilities. In stores, sphagnum moss comes in a dried form and is sold for its beneficial properties. Sphagnum moss is used in gardening the most and plants grow very well potted in them, but sometimes gardeners see its negative effect. This mostly occurs due to the watering and taking care of the plants while they are planted in sphagnum moss.
This is why knowing how to water plants in sphagnum moss is important. This is not a critical process to follow, to be honest, but you just have to be careful and pay attention to details. So what are those let’s find out.
Key Takeways
- Sphagnum moss, more commonly known as pit moss, is able to hold a lot of water which helps give a plant a push to grow.
- Sphagnum moss helps plants to grow but they can degrade. That is why it is important to make sure you water them properly.
- There are many pros and cons to growing plants in sphagnum moss that you should know about before using it for your plants.
How to Water Plants in Sphagnum?
Sphagnum moss is very commonly used in planting trees, especially succulents since succulents grow roots attached to their body and cannot grow in soil, sphagnum gives them a push to grow. Sphagnum is a proven method of growing plants and keeps them hydrated. Sphagnum moss has a porous body that can hold water up to 20 times its own weight. As the sphagnum dries its pores shrink and make a perfect body that can hold water for a long time. The benefit that makes sphagnum so popular comes with disadvantages too. As you water the plant in your sphagnum it degrades slowly and over time the sphagnum starts to have an effect on the plant that is sitting on it.
The reason behind degradation is because of the composition changes in the sphagnum body. As degradation continues in sphagnum, the pot starts to grow bacteria and broken-down cells. The bacteria eventually attack the plants and can grow various diseases or might kill the plant!
To be safe from this kind of problem you must know how to water and take care of the plant in sphagnum moss. I would not say having a proper way of watering and nurturing would completely stop degrading sphagnum, rather it would slow down the process. So let’s see the step-by-step process of how you can water your plants on sphagnum moss.
Step 1: Do Not Leave Empty Spots While Planting
The first step to watering plants in sphagnum and growing one healthy beautiful plant starts right from the beginning of planting. While you are putting sphagnum moss for planting your plant in that, do not leave any empty stops on the pot. That is because if you leave an empty space it would stay filled while you water your plants. Water from those empty spots would not be soaked completely. But that definitely does not mean you pack the sphagnum moss in the pot rather pot them loosely without leaving any empty spots.
Step 2: Watering The Plants In Sphagnum Moss
While watering the plants in sphagnum moss one thing you need to keep in mind is that sphagnum moss can hold a lot of water. So do not try to overflow the pot with water thinking that would last for a long time. Rater overflowing water would kill your plant by drowning it. there is a high possibility the roots will rot as the water will stay in the pot for a long time. While watering plants sprinkle water with a spray and just try to spray enough water that would wet the sphagnum moss.
Step 3: Stop Watering Often
Since sphagnum can hold a lot of water and is mainly used to keep your plants hydrated for a long time, that directly indicates you don’t need to water your plants in sphagnum as often as you normally would. If you are struggling to understand how long you should wait in between the watering! Well, you can wait until you see the sphagnum mosses are dry. Once you see the sphagnum moss are flaky and seem completely dry you can go ahead and repeat step two once again.
Following this step would help to keep your plants healthy in sphagnum moss. Also, you can avoid growing bacteria and root rotting by following them. Now that you know proper watering of plants in sphagnum moss is very important and also there are consequences of not watering in a proper manner. You can have questions regarding the effectiveness and problems of growing plants in sphagnum moss.
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Pros and Cons of Planting in Sphagnum Moss
Sphagnum moss is a very popularly used moss among gardeners. It is very commonly found and its beneficial effects are marketed so well that people just indulge themselves in that. Well yes, sphagnum moss has great use in gardening and crafting and has lots of benefits for the plants. But here we will show you the positive and negative aspects so that you can know details about your plants’ fate. First, let’s talk about the benefits of planting in sphagnum moss.
Pros of Growing Plants in Sphagnum Moss
- Sphagnum moss has incredible water-holding capacity. Sphagnum moss is widely known for its capability of providing moisture to plants. People are so intrigued about growing plants in sphagnum moss that they would not have to go around and water the plants so often.
- Sphagnum moss can create air pockets that can hold oxygen and provide the plants with an increased level of oxygen that would boost their photosynthesis capability.
- When you grow a plant in sphagnum moss you would not have to worry about the timing you would have to water your plants. Because by seeing the dried and lighter color of sphagnum moss you would know when they need water.
- When you grow a plant in sphagnum moss the root grows much more easily because of the small pockets in the moss.
- Planting in sphagnum moss makes it much easier for gardeners as there is no dirt falling over and sphagnum is best for indoor gardening.
- Since there will be no soil in the pot and sphagnum moss will be working as the medium you would have a clear view of the roots growing and you can take action if there is any problem identified.
Cons of Growing Plants in Sphagnum Moss
- Sphagnum moss can be bad for alkaline plant habitats. since they are acidic and have a tendency to be less acidic over time and plants cannot always adapt to acidic conditions due to their natural composition. Sphagnum moss has a pH level of 4.2 and will reduce over time, this acidic condition makes an environment for plants where they cannot have enough available nutrients, causing nutrition toxicity.
- Over time the moss starts to get fermented and starts to close the air pockets. at a point the air flow gets limited. With the wet saturated condition and limited air flow bacteria and fungus uses up all the oxygen which eventually leads plants’ roots to rot.
- Sphagnum moss has been associated with the fungal disease sporotrichosis. This fungus enters broken skin and causes tiny bumps in the body and infects the whole area.
FAQs
You should water the moss every 9 days. This allows it to stay refreshed and ensures that the moss is not degrading early.
You can use sphagnum moss for 2 to 5 years if taken care of properly. The most important thing here is to make sure that you are taking care of it properly so that it is able to last that long.
For some plants, yes, it is better than soil. But it will depend on the plant completely because some plants will need soil that is more airy or more nutrient-rich.
Final Thoughts
Sphagnum moss is a popular medium for growing plants. Sphagnum moss has been proven to be useful but this can go otherwise if the plant has not been watered properly. Water is a very important component for sphagnum moss to function properly, way too little water, sphagnum moss will dry along with the plant; way too much water and it will rot with the plant. But you can easily water your plants in sphagnum moss by following the very basic steps discussed. By following the step your watering measurement will be just fine to go. you might need to understand the pros and cons of sphagnum moss too so that you would not have to be in distress when the proper watering does not work.
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