I'm in the same boat as you. This sans watering thing can get complicated. There's just so much information out there. My mother has the really common sans you see in stores all the time. It is in a glazed, six inch pot about a foot away from a south window. She says she waters hers about every 7 or 14 days. She doesn't keep track strictly. Just when it's dry. It's been growing like crazy over the past two years. I have some sans too. Four types. They have been doing pretty well for me all spring. I have decided to let the soil dry all the way through then wait a few more days, and then water. Right now they are in 3 - 4 inch pots. I have been watering probably every 9 or 10 days. That's only because they're growing right now though. When they go dormant, or stop growing for a time, I will wait until the leaves become slightly wilty or bendy.

My mother had several plant collections, she collected rare alpine plants, most of which were 2 to six inches tall, and I never did appreciate them, but I loved her Primula collection, odd gilded Victorian primroses, hose in garter prims, Japanese primroses, drumsticks and species. My first love in my own garden was the Lily, I loved the trumpet and oriental lilies for their rich deep scent. I lived with more than 200 different modern rosebushes for five years and only one was fragrant Double Delight, and I could not stand the gawky bare limbed growth habit of those H.T.s and Florries. THEN LUanne changed my life with one suggestion "since your'e looking for fragrance why don't you try growing Old Garden Roses ? I did and never looked back. I was enchanted to know that I could and would grow the white 'Rose of York' and the Lancaster Red Rose, cloned from descendants from the same plants that bloomed in medieval Europe. The white Musk rose that Shakespeare wrote so sweetly of, is in my garden now about to bloom. The history and mystery of Old Roses endears me to them, I love knowing that I see roses blooming that I grow the white rose of York, known since the 1400's in England, and that white rose and the red rose of Lancaster was likely to have been seen by both Shakespeare and the Tudor family back when knights fought in tournaments, and some people truly believed that unicorns might exist, the wild eglantine one sees in Queen Elizabeth 1's portraits, painted in the 1500's, are a symbol of virginity and I have held the wild eglantine in my hand, so small and frail and perfect, and smelled the welcome scent of its leaves on a moist breeze. - the rare and only yellow garden rose, brought from the middle east, seen in the paintings of the dutch masters was so rare in the 17th century that one painter had to wait months for a yellow rose bloom to appear in the marketplace, so he could fulfill his patrons request for a yellow rose in a still life. The many Tea roses blooming in my California garden, and the Banksiae have ancestors in China, and I would love to see them all in their native habitat. I love roses best with companions, the photo posted recently with hollyhocks and red Valerian in profusion with one Le Vesuve in the center is my idea of high beauty; lush colorful companions with a queen in the middle. O, Splendor, O, Joy!!! The leaves,up to 15 leaflets upon one stem, fern shaped leaves of Scotch Burnets, pleated rugosa folaige, the scent of the Incense Rose leaves, more strongly scented than many a flower of a modern rose, the flagon shaped hips of Alba Semi Plena, and millions of R. moyessi hips, hips as large as cherry tomatos on Magnifica rugosa, tiny sprays of black hips an ornament many Spinosissima roses, the lush grow of de la Grifferaie' blue-green leaves of the Alba roses, pretty arching growth of a pegged Hybrid Perpetual Ulrich Brunner fils' , and many scents of the different rose classes, , classic Damask, to the sexy scent of Tea roses has opened a world to me that I could not dream to comprehend before I knew of any rose other than 'Peace'. -and best of all, the people I meet at Old Rose events, and here on gardenweb that share their love of roses with me. Thank you all for sharing your beautiful writing, Lux

You can buy the crystals that soak up water to add to your potting soil, or buy the potting soil that already has it mixed in - it is the same stuff in the diapers. I have a few of the pots that have the Coco liners - they dry out SO fast. I put a plastic grocery sack inside the liner, then add the potting soil. I then take a knife and run it through the soil, plastic bag, and liner in several spots - so that it will drain - but it doesn't dry out so fast that way. Once I have to soil in the bag/liner I take a scissors and cut off the part of the bag that is sticking out so it doesn't show. I also ALWAY add lots of Osmocote plant food to my potting soil. It really makes the plants bloom all summer! I also add it to the ground when I am planting things there. I add a scoop to the hole before I set the plant it. Here is a link that might be useful: Osmocote plant food - good stuff :)

"A" is a pot filled with commercially prepared potting soil. The shaded part represents a rather normal PWT (perched water table) of 4" which is about normal for commercially prepared mixes based primarily on small particulates - peat, coir, compost. composted forest products, sand, ..... The ht of the PWT is primarily based on the size of particles from which the soil is made, and the ht of the PWT any given soil will support is the same in any shaped container. "B" is pot "A" tipped at a 45* angle. Since the PWT ht is going to be the same in any pot, you can see how much extra water was forced from the drain hole when the pot was tipped. When you use this trick of science to help drain extra water from your pots, it's best (but not critical) that you have a drain hole through the bottom of the pot near the vertical wall, and that that drain hole is at the lowest point on the tipped pot. "C" is meant to illustrate that the container shape can have significant impact on how much perched water a planting can hold. "D" is one example of using ballast to reduce the amount of perched water a planting can hold. Compared to "A", you can see it reduces the amount of perched water in the planting by displacing soil that would otherwise be filled with perched water. "E" shows what can be accomplished with the use of a wick. Like B, the wick is best secured through a hole in the bottom where bottom meets the pot wall. It's also most effective when you use the wick and tip the pot, too. These images illustrate how much pot depth (and shape) can influence the amount soil roots will grow into. Most of the plants we normally grow as houseplants are reluctant to grow into saturated soils, and when they do, they're often killed the next time the planting is watered. The cyclic death and regeneration of roots is a very expensive outlay for the plant and comes straight out of its growth/development account. IOW, the energy the plant spends to regenerate roots over and over again is borrowed from energy that would otherwise be devoted to growth and vitality, and keeping the plant's defense systems orderly and humming along as you wish they would. The last images show what happens when a "drainage layer" is used (see middle image), and how you can use ballast at the bottom of the pot to eliminate nearly ALL perched water. Many items can be used as ballast - bricks, soda bottles/milk jugs with the cap still attached, kids plastic building blocks from a dollar store, over-turned pots. For growers not interested in making their own soils that allow the grower to water correctly without having to resort to tricks of science to drain away excess water, I highly recommend using ballast. It won't be as effective as media with a higher % of air porosity, but it will darn well make a big difference in how much of their genetic potential your plants can achieve. Al