I have plants in gritty growing in a "pot in a pot" in my house. You are spot on about hearing the water trickle out while watering. My pots are ceramic and plastic. The plastic pot fits tightly leaving a reservoir at the bottom. The roots evetually grow down into that moist void space. Now about the water in the bottom. If the pots are glazed ceramic, the water won't evaporate very fast. Any raw ceramic, like on the very bottom, will help evaporate out the water. It will also destroy a hardwood floor because of the moisture, so lift it off the ground if the bottom is not glazed. You are going to need to figure out a way to remove the water in the bottom of the pot. With my small ones, I just take them outside and tip them on their sides to dump the water. This would be problematic with a large heavy container. A downtube that you could stick a siphon in would work. The interior stand could be another pot. Generally, I find that to be a bad idea. Sometimes it works and is the right height, but not usually. I make a stand out of 3/4" PVC at the exact right height. This leaves the bottom with as much open space as possible and therefore the greatest capacity for water. You want that void to be empty, no lava rock or anything. That just takes up space unnecessarily. Don't use paper to fill voids. This will be a humid environment and the paper will get funky. Long strand sphagnum moss works well. It also works well as a mulch so that you don't see two pots. If you need to take up a considerable amount of space between the two pots, cut pieces of Styrofoam insulation board and glue them to one of the pots. You don't want stuff falling down into the void if you have remove the interior pot. Just use a couple dabs of window caulk. It can be a good idea to size the interior pot small enough to be able to get a 1/2" pvc stand tube in there between the two pots. This will allow you to stick a smaller tube in there to siphon out the water. You don't need to drill additional holes in a terra cotta pot.

Marcia, Please help me find out what kind of snake I came across today. While I was at the local dog park (near Orlando) I came across a yellow with black stripes snake. It looked to be between 3.5-4 feet long and did not appear at first glance (that was all I gave it out of fear) to be shiny. I was about 3 feet from it and didn't know it until my dog almost stepped on it. She obviously didn't see it either. The snake seemed a pit peeved about the whole thing but it decided not to attack and to slowly slither towards ME to get away from my dog. Needless to say, I took off in a different direction real quick and hollered for my dog to follow. I am not like you or others on this site. I am not a fan of snakes and am extremely afraid of them. Although, I don't mind the black racers that seem to have taken up permanent residence in MY back yard and they love to procreate often (or so it seems). I have seen a lot less field rats since the racers moved in and that makes me very happy. Anyway, can you help me figure out what this snake was? I have spent hours and hours online tonight trying to find it and just can't seem to find anything that looks like it. I am guessing that it is not dangerous to me or my dogs??? I am scared to take my dogs back through those woods that they so dearly love. As soon as I told them, "No more woods until the snakes are gone again," they "told" me to find it if it was dangerous or not and if it isn't that they want to go back again. So that is mostly why I am asking you for your help. We all love the walks but I am afraid of the snakes. Please help me feel safer about going back. Thanks in advance for your help.

In my opinion best advice is to seek treatment for phobia. I had a severe phobia of dogs that I had to get treated and it is very worth it and I think a lot of people that have more "socially acceptable phobias" (e.g. spiders or snakes rather than beloved dogs, people thought I was evil for being scared of dogs! even though I have been up to cottonmouths before and been fine, didn't bother me,... but as a kid I got CHASED DOWN by dogs and attacked so...). We share this world with a lot of creatures, it's something to get used to. Desensitization&exposure therapy is best to build yourself up first before you ever see one. That being said, eliminating brush piles in areas you frequent/maintain a lot, keeping it open will keep snakes out of those areas and make them favor more wild spots. Keeping things open tends to be best for the more cultivated areas of the garden anyway, to maintain airflow. ALSO snakes are often not very active in the day except after rains. They don't like being out in the open especially in the day because one of their main predators, hawks, can see them. I rarely see snakes around my house and I have a bunch of brush lol I've only seen them out at night (there's the cutest baby kingsnake but i digress). avoid times when snakes are most active and you'll be a lot less likely to see them. anyway best of luck treating your phobia, it's a hard road but very worth it to be free of it

Some of the injuries are mechanical in nature, but I think (too) that you're likely over-watering. The plant would appreciate a highly aerated medium, something like either of these: Your plant is genetically programmed to tolerate a medium that has gone completely dry, even though that's not the best strategy. It won't tolerate prolonged periods of saturated soil, so withholding water until the soil is completely dry is a much better choice than keeping the soil continually wet. The best strategy would be to water just before the soil dries completely. You can do that if you start using a "tell", to "tell" you when it's time to water. More about using a tell below. This might also be of interest/assistance. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al