How to keep indoor plants alive over the holidays

A new way to water indoors plants

The sim­plest way to wa­ter plants re­mote­ly: myth or re­al­i­ty?

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

None.

Equip­ment

  • pot­ted plant;
  • pa­per clip;
  • pli­ers;
  • yarn;
  • deep con­tain­er.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Use some pli­ers to un­bend a pa­per clip and form it into a loop. Use the loop to help thread some yarn through the holes in the pot of a pot­ted plant. Fill a deep con­tain­er with wa­ter and ar­range the pot in the con­tain­er so that the bot­tom of the pot isn’t quite touch­ing the wa­ter.

Process de­scrip­tion

In this ex­per­i­ment, the wa­ter wets the threads, but grav­i­ty in­ter­feres with its abil­i­ty to rise to the soil. Yarn con­sists of fibers of plant or an­i­mal ori­gin, and thus con­tains nu­mer­ous cap­il­lar­ies for the wa­ter to rise through. Once in the nar­row cap­il­lar­ies, the wa­ter’s sur­face adopts a con­cave shape, form­ing a menis­cus. Mean­while, the wa­ter pres­sure un­der this menis­cus be­comes low­er than at­mo­spher­ic pres­sure, and the wa­ter be­gins to rise. The thin­ner the cap­il­lary, the high­er the wa­ter ris­es, try­ing to bal­ance the pres­sure dif­fer­ence. As the wa­ter reach­es the top of the yarn, it is grad­u­al­ly re­leased into the soil.

Try it