by Jeanne

This past month, I’ve noticed that the pothos growing in my office began to lose leaves. It sits on top of a big china cabinet, and aside from standing on tip toes to water it once a week, I pretty much forget that it’s there. It drapes long vines and heart-shaped gold speckled green leaves over my cabinet and adds a bit of life to that otherwise dull and prosaic corner of the office. So when I began crunching on fallen leaves and looked up, I was surprised to see many of the plant’s leaves turning an anemic yellow.

I dragged out my step ladder (it really is a big cabinet) and took the plant down. A musty, foul smell rose from the pot. I had the plastic pot immersed in a pretty cachepot, and as soon as I pulled the plastic pot from the cachepot, I realized the problem.  Over watering. It seems like I’d done a good job ensuring drainage in the original plastic pot, but that meant that water had been collecting for some time in the cachepot, literally drowning the poor plant. The roots were a tangled mess under the pot too, indicating the plant had become pot-bound.  It needed bigger living quarters, a soil change, and time to dry out.

I decided to move the pothos down to my first floor plant room, a small room at the back of the house I use for a meditation/garden room. It’s filled to the brim with house plants, mostly African violets but also some Christmas cactus, orchids, and miscellaneous plants I’ve adopted from friends who were moving and couldn’t take their plants with them.

I decided to check on several African violets I’d potted up around the same time as the pothos. Sure enough, they were drowning too!

Now I love decorative cachepots; they’re an elegant touch to my home, and hide the ugly plastic pots most house plants come in. My experience does point out, however, that you must regularly check your house plants for signs that they’ve outgrown their pots and for signs of over or under watering.

More plants are killed by kindness and over watering, I think, than by neglect.  I’ve grown plants indoors my entire life, no matter where I lived.  African violets whenever I could, and more exotic plants too, like a jasmine that I had in my first freelance writing office that had a southern-facing exposure. I love my house plants. Yet even this experienced gardener almost killed her plants with a strange combination of kindness and neglect, over watering them while failing to check to see if they needed a larger pot.

Look for signs of over crowding or plants becoming pot bound, such as roots growing out of the drainage holes. Feel the soil; if it’s soggy, cut back on watering. Some plants make babies when they’re crowded, such as spider plants. Look for offspring; that may be another sign your plant needs a larger home.

Take a few moments today to inspect your house plants. Then make a list of the steps you need to take to keep them healthy.