Encore Dr. Cathey!

Thanks to archival information and Google, we can read houseplant advice from almost half a century year ago. What’s more interesting is that it’s more accurate than what is published today. 

The excerpts that follow are from (PDF) Home and Garden Bulletin 82, a 46 year old USDA publication from 1962. The author was Henry M. Cathey of the Crops Research Division, Agricultural Research Service. 

He was later to become widely known as Dr. H. Marc Cathey, now retired and President Emeritus of the American Horticultural Society. He is also co-chair of The Growing Connection, a U.N. organization. 

He knew the benefits of sub-irrigation in 1962

The most significant aspect of the bulletin is the information about subirrigating. Cathey never uses the inaccurate and highly misleading term “self-watering”. That is a credit to his knowledge of basic science that we seem to have forgotten over the years. 

Page 23

Subirrigating 

Subirrigation supplies water to the plant from the bottom. It maintains a desirable level of soil moisture and lessens the guesswork of when to water. You can buy containers that have a subirrigation system built in the base, or you can make a subirrigation system. 

Page 26

Avoid overwatering. Overwatering is the commonest cause of trouble in growing house plants. No other general rule applies to the watering of house plants. Some plants do best if the soil is kept moist; others do best if the soil is allowed to dry moderately between waterings. 

For best results, use subirrigation or double potting. Overwatering is less likely with these methods than it is with watering from the top. 

We would be well served to have Dr. Cathey conduct a refresher course for today’s extension program agents and garden writers who use the term “self-watering” exclusively. It’s one thing for manufacturers to use this hype terminology and another for supposedly educated professionals to use it. 

It is a valid question to ask why this basic information has been buried. The generation of tenured horticultural educators with roots in the 1970’s has managed to do an excellent job of dumbing down our knowledge of growing plants in containers. It’s certainly nothing to be proud of.