Summer watering tips: one simple, clear piece of advice

As soon as the weather turns even slightly harsh, watering immediately becomes the hardest thing to get right.

For example, these questions are all classics:

Can I water when it's been cloudy for days?

Can I water when the high is 36°C?

The weather is nice today, but it's supposed to rain in a couple of days - can I water?

It's been showery for days - can I water?

If it's going to rain for the next three days, should I wait until the rain stops before watering?

Can I water when the air humidity is 80%? Can I water at 99%?

……

This is only a tiny, tiny fraction of such questions. If you then add different varieties, different potting times, flower pots of different materials, flower pots of different depths... the combinations of such questions are absolutely endless.

In the end, all these questions boil down to one sentence: under all kinds of harsh conditions, how should you water to avoid succulent death as much as possible? This is the topic we're going to talk about today: the most universal rule for watering succulents.

Before I get into this, I want to ask everyone a question in return: what is standard body weight (never mind whether this question is related to today's topic - please think about it for 10 seconds)?

There are many, many measures of standard body weight. On this question, the most official statement is to divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters; if the resulting number is around 20, then your weight is standard and normal.

Another saying is: take your height in cm, subtract 100, then multiply by 0.9, and that is your reasonable weight in kilograms.

But these two methods often don't work very well in practice. In actual measurements, many people are healthy by the numbers, yet still get found to have fatty liver during a physical exam. That is clearly still a sign of obesity.

Later I read an article that gave this standard, and I think it's more reliable than all the standard body weight measures above. This standard says: the highest weight standard at which the abdomen has just no excess fat is your optimal healthy weight.

This standard doesn't tell you what weight is standard for you; instead, it gives you a criterion for measuring a healthy weight. Excess fat on the abdomen means fat accumulation in the internal organs; if the abdomen has no excess fat, that means healthy internal organs. This standard is very clever: it accommodates all kinds of different situations, lets everyone aim for health, prevents blind weight loss, and gives each person their own tailored standard.

Let's bring the topic back. Regarding watering methods in harsh weather, can there also be a goal-oriented approach?

The answer is: yes.

What is the fundamental reason we dare not water? It's because too much water makes the soil lack air permeability, which causes root rot or black rot, right? We never worry about watering aquatic plants (such as water lilies) because these plants simply don't have the problem of root rot or black rot from too much water.

So with that said, our watering standard appears. If you water today and it dries out completely tomorrow, would you still be afraid to water your succulents? Definitely not, right?

Then let's use the time it takes for the soil to dry naturally after watering to help us measure whether to water and how much to water.

Before watering, first ask yourself a question: what is the current soil moisture content? Slightly damp? Or soaking wet? If you're not sure, find a way to know. A relatively simple method is to prepare a transparent flower pot (advertisement: there is just such a product at the end of the article). When you want to know the soil's dryness and moisture, just take a look at this transparent flower pot. You can also prepare a few empty flower pots, and when you want to know the soil moisture, tip the soil out and look. Inserting a toothpick is also a fairly reliable method, as long as you don't stab and injure the succulent's roots.

Once we understand the actual moisture of the potting soil, we basically know whether we should water. If the potting soil is very dry, then no matter how heavily it's raining outside, and no matter whether the air humidity has reached 100%, we must water. Rain outside and moisture in the air cannot replace the water in the soil.

Once we've determined that we should water, the remaining questions are how much to water and how to water.

The reason we need to consider how much to water is simply to avoid waterlogging, root rot and black rot, and to ensure the soil has air permeability.

So the core factor determining how much to water is the soil's current drying speed. The faster the soil dries, the more water you can give. If the soil dries slowly, water less.

Generally speaking, if within 3 days after watering the soil can return to a state of moist but not wet, then the amount of water was appropriate. What is moist but not wet? It's when you grab the soil with your hand and can feel the moisture, but the soil is loose and won't clump together because of too much water - that is moist but not wet.

The harder the soil is to dry, the less water you should give. At 100% air humidity, soil evaporation almost completely stops. At this time, water in small amounts and multiple times, soaking it in slowly, so that after watering there is no standing water at all. When soil moisture won't evaporate, any excess watering will block soil air permeability for a long time, which is very dangerous.

Conversely, in areas where the air is relatively dry, even if there are showers every day, as long as the rain stops, the air humidity immediately drops and doesn't really affect soil evaporation. In such an environment, watering is a fairly casual matter.

Alright, let's summarize our standard at the end:

We just broke the watering problem down into two questions: whether to water and how much to water.

Whether to water has nothing to do with the weather or the temperature. As long as the soil is dry, you should water. If the soil has moisture, don't water. This judgment is very simple.

How much to water is only related to the soil's evaporation speed. The slower the soil evaporates, the less you should water, ensuring that within 3 days the soil can return to a breathable state of moist but not wet. High air humidity, no sunlight, poor ventilation, or the pot opening being blocked by the plant - all these factors will slow down soil evaporation, and you should water less as appropriate.

That's everything I wanted to share today. I hope it helps everyone.