I have been looking for all these information of top watering and self-watering. I have few questions here. Should I change the soil mixed according to the way I am going to water my plants? The top watering and self-watering may have different result according to the composition of the mixed soil preparation I feel. Most of my containers do not have drainage hole and wick but self-watering. I did not plan very well to start container gardening before I start. After I found this website I started to know a little bit about container gardening. Then I realized that containers without drainage hole are not a good choice for container gardening. Next time I will buy self-watering containers with drainage hole. Still thinking to make holes and use some kinds of water proof plugs to seal it again. For the young plants usually I do top watering a bit because I think the roots are not long enough to reach the water from the bottom. On the other hand the surface of the soil getting wet and small insects started appear and flying around the plants and have fungus too. Sometimes I cover the upper soil with dried coco fiber it looks a bit helpful. Right now as much as possible I avoid top watering except spray the leafs. All the containers are inside my house just like a kind of companion plants. I have only few containers so I monitor regularly according to the health of the plants I do what it is necessary to do.

Hi Neighbor, I'm in St. Pete. You'll have a hard time finding MVP here in Florida. If you do decide to go that way you'll probably need to find your local Lesco dealer and settle for Allsport, just be aware that some have stated that it's slightly finer than MVP, which probably means it will hold a little more moisture, something that can be detrimental in our humid environment unless you compensate by reducing the amount used.... Having said that, look at this site but be aware that's a northern environment, who's to say Al's 5:1:1 won't work as well for us here as a 7:2:2. I wish I could give you better advice but I'm a newbie too, just moved into containers last year after giving up fighting nematodes in the Florida soil. I had moderate success with the spring crops because I bought a bagged mix that held too much moisture and had my containers above ground where the Florida sun literally cooked the soil mix, stressing the plant roots. My yield for this fall, remember - we here in Florida get TWO veggie seasons, has been substantial in comparison to last spring due to moving to Al's 5:1:1 mix and going to a pot-in-pot model, burying the larger pots in the ground simply to keep the soil mix in the plant pots cooler. BUT, now I'm thinking of moving into SWCs to diminish the amount of time I'm spending watering since I work 50 hours a week, and to reduce the water waste, something inherent to a fast draining mix in a hot environment. Happy Gardening! Tom

Petrushka that information was so helpful! Thanks so much for taking a look at the link for the soil mix and weighing in. I went ahead and ordered three bags of it based on your assessment. I have three 3-foot plastic window boxes that I will place side by side across the ledge. They will definitely be heavy once full, but the reservoir is refillable from the top so hopefully I can just use a watering can to do that and it won't be necessary to move them. The ledge is simply a visual divider between by living room and dining room which both have 2-story ceilings, so there will be open space on both sides of the planters as well as lots of open space above them. While I know I'm pushing my luck with 12 feet between them and a light source, there are large windows on both sides of the ledge (a large one in the dining room and two on the opposite wall in the living room), so at least they will have light coming in from both directions. There is also a very large wall-sized mirror on my dining room wall adjacent to that window, and my walls and ceiling are a pale cream color so that all helps reflect natural light and make the room a little brighter. To give you a better idea of how much light I'm working with, throughout the day it stays light enough near the ledge that one could read comfortably without switching a light on, but there are never any spots of concentrated light on the walls at any time during the day... It is all very filtered (and dim enough to feel slightly gloomy, so I always have lamps on when I'm in there even though I can see fine without them.) After doing some more research I'm now leaning toward buying Philodendron hederaceum (which I had thought was called Philodendron scandens until I read more of that very informative blog you linked to!) instead of the Syngonium I originally asked about. The sunlight issue is my biggest concern at this point, but I've been encouraged by several anecdotes about P hederaceum thriving in conditions even dimmer than mine, so I'll give it a shot (and probably have my husband remove the solar screen from the dining room window for an extra light boost). Cautiously optimistic!

Thank you, Korina. It sounds like I'll either try finding a self-waterer that wicks straight from the bottom or I'll go "old school" and just find a nice glazed, clay pot & saucer. The water difference strikes a chord, too. I've tried growing the AVs in just water for the last year due to a problem with fungus gnats (the annoying little buggers, I've tried to put every positive spin on them I could until I eschewed soil-gardening, at what looks like, the expense of my AVs. BTW--Does anyone know how to out-smart fungus gnats?) It makes sense that they might like RO water better than the liquid stone that comes from the tap. I've got to try that. I know when I lived in Michigan where we practically had freshwater for air every plant just *thrived*. Out here in AZ, it's a struggle to find plants that can even do marginally well (other than succulants, for which I have a black thumb,) so most of my gardening has been aquaculture. I have a friend out here who grows AVs, Wandering Jews and "lucky bamboo" out of the filters hanging on the backs of her aquariums. They seem to do wildly well for her, but I've been afraid that the violet fert. that I've been feeding my plants might be systemic in the plants by now and might be adverse in my small tanks....But speaking of fish tanks, is there any chance that the charcoal from fish filters would be an o.k. substitute for the horticultural variety? I change out the filters in my tanks regularly and since they're "charged-up" by fish poop and full-spectrum NPK aquatic fertilizer, I usually cut open the filters and dump the charcoal on my outside plants to ammend the soil. My biggest struggle out here is just keeping soil in any plant, but esp the AVs, consistantly moist enough since the air is just bone dry. Even sitting them on a plate of pebbles with water underneath, the water's completely evaporated in 1-2 days (sooner in the summertime.) And probably my worst AV crime is keeping them in a room with SW exposure. In Michigan, a southern window was sublime for every little kind of plant (but here in Arizona, we basically have either SW or NE facing windows.) Do you think a NE exposure in AZ would give them enough light? If so, I might move them into my bedroom where it stays consistantly cooler, but they would still has a large window for indirect light--keeping them around 75 deg. instead of having that daily warm-spike of the SW room. Thanks again, Korina. And instead of just buying those bags of Scotts AV soil, I'll make a special trip down to the nursery that has one my fish in their ponds and get a blend like the one you're recommending :) They guys always like it when I go down there anyway since it means they're getting cookies and Sweetie the goldfish gets treats, too! :)