If you’ve spent any time in the houseplant world, you’ve probably heard of bottom watering. It’s celebrated as a low maintenance way to get your plants to drink up. But is it the best way to hydrate your plants? The short answer: it depends! Let’s break down the pros and cons so you can decide if, and when, bottom watering is right for your plant care routine.
Wait…What Is Bottom Watering?
Bottom watering is a watering method that involves placing your plant’s pot in a tray of water and letting it soak up moisture through the drainage holes, via capillary action. This method allows the soil to absorb water evenly from the bottom up.
Pros of Bottom Watering:
Rehydrating hydroponic soil: if left to dry out too long, soil can become hydrophobic or unable to absorb water from top watering. Bottom watering is a great way to remedy this.
Prevents, or reduces, chance of overwatering - The soil absorbs only what it needs, and gets evenly saturated. (Just make sure to remove the pot from the bowl of water when the soil is rehydrated.
Low Maintenance - if you have many small pots that take forever to water, putting all the pots in one bowl or saucer to bottom water saves a lot of time.
Avoids water sitting on leaves - Many plants like african violets, hate getting their leaves wet. Plus, in general, water sitting on foliage can cause fungal issues.
Ensures even soil saturation - Capillary action allows for the soil to evenly rehydrate with no dry pockets of soil that can be missed with top watering.
Cons of Bottom Watering:
Takes longer - Plants need to sit in the bowl of water for up to an hour, depending on pot size, to properly rehydrate.
Doesn’t flush out salts – Most of our tap water has salts and minerals that should not remain in the potting media. So solely bottom watering removes the possibility to flush the soil of any built up minerals.
When to Use Bottom Watering
For plants prone to overwatering (like African violets and prayer plants)
When you’ve accidentally forgotten about a plant and the soil has become hydrophobic (dry and compacted)
If you have lots of plants in little pots - it’s just simpler to bottom water 10 small pots in a tray of water, than individually.
I like the 90/10 method
I use bottom watering with my small pots and when I need to rehydrate soil, but I try and only bottom water around 10% of the time. It’s best to mimic how plants get watered in nature, which is by top watering.
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About the Author
I’m Maria, host of the Growing Joy with Plants podcast, author of Growing Joy, and creator of the Growing Joy with Plants Masterclass, where I teach plant lovers how to confidently care for their houseplants—beyond just following care cards. Want to learn how to truly understand what your plants need?
Get $50 off the course here with code “WTW”.
