Watch this video and hear the claim “you cannot over water”. The official EarthBox website says the same thing.
“With the overflow hole you can never over water, so always keep the reservoir filled.”
The true facts based on science:
“Self-watering” is a marketing hype term used only in the consumer market. It is used to describe a planter that provides water to plants using sub-irrigation based on capillary action.
It is a misleading and inaccurate term that has led to the widespread misuse of sub-irrigation planters.
If you constantly top off the water reservoir, you will most definitely over water the plant(s) in the "self-watering" planter.
Unlike animals, plants have no intelligence to start and stop drinking.
EarthBox (and many others) tell a “white lie” when they say you cannot over water. The unsaid caveat is this is likely only when the planter is located outside in full sunlight.
It’s Our Education Stupid
If we don't understand the difference between capillary action and osmosis, it's a symptom of an education problem. If we don’t understand that plants have no intelligence to start and stop “drinking” water, it's a symptom of an education problem. If we believe a clay pot and saucer is the best way to maintain plants in containers, it's a symptom of an education problem. If we think the term “self-watering” is synonymous with sub-irrigation, it's a symptom of an education problem.
I see these beliefs expressed every day of my blogging research on the web. They lead to an opinion that our level of science education in the field of gardening and horticulture is woefully weak. Is this an anomaly peculiar to the field of horticulture or is it symptomatic of our overall education?
David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece yesterday titled The Biggest Issue and benchmarked our education decline around 1975. I’ve been an eyewitness to much of this in the field of “ornamental” horticulture, which attracted high school students to land grant colleges by the thousands in the ‘70s.
Continue reading "It’s Our Education Stupid" »
Posted by Greenscaper on July 30, 2008 at 07:49 AM in Clay pots, Editorial Comment, Education, Indoor Plants, Interior Plantscaping, Science & Technology , SIP Sub-Irrigated Planter aka incorrectly as "self-watering" | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)