I have two plants. One was turning dark brown on the edges. That would undoubtedly be from over-watering. The water meter read dry all around and moist in the middle. Water meters don't measure moisture, they measure electrical conductivity. Fill a clean cup part full of distilled water, insert a clean water meter probe and note it reads 'DRY'. Sprinkle some salt in the water (makes the water conduct electricity) and watch the meter move to 'WET'. It's much better to use a 'tell'. See below. I soaked it and the nursery said to take take it out if the pot and ket the rootball dry out. After I did that, I repotted and soak it. The advice to remove the root/soil mass was to pull the excess water out of it. Putting it back in the pot and soaking it undid what would have otherwise been beneficial. I also cut the brown off of the edges. No problem in doing that. You should find this piece about Good Growing Habits helpful. The shortest route to green thumb status starts with learning all you can, instead of trying dozens of different things and ending up totally confused by the mixed results. When you learn what to do beforehand, you don't spend your valuable time getting bit on the butt by mistakes; rather you use your practical experience to validate what you already learned. Practice that, and you'll leave the 'trial-and-error crowd' standing in your slipstream. 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 plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, 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. The advice to water when the top inch or two of the soil is dry is almost always counter-productive. 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 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

Overview of Good Growing Practices When Your Plant is Sick or Dying ..... Understanding how water behaves in container media and how to adjust your soil's water retention probably represents the largest single step forward a container gardener can take at any given time. Most hobby growers are in a constant fight with their chosen soil for control of their plants' vitality. Learn how to avoid that fight and you'll have put the uphill battle behind you. You'll find that discussion here. Al

I don't want to overwhelm you to the point where you decide "this is too much info", and give up; but, the rocks are large enough that they probably were acting as ballast instead of a drainage layer. If a medium supports a 4" column of excess (perched) water, it supports the same 4" of excess no matter what the pot size or shape happens to be. The shaded part below represents perched water: I don't want to overwhelm you to the point where you decide "this is too much info", and give up; but, the rocks are large enough that they probably were acting as ballast instead of a drainage layer. If a medium supports a 4" column of excess (perched) water, it supports the same 4" of excess no matter what the pot size or shape happens to be. The shaded part below represents excess/perched water, and that portion of the medium is 100% saturated. A few rocks in the pot bottom displaces soil that would otherwise be saturated, so it reduces the amount of water the container can hold. The perched water column is still the same ht, but because of the bricks/stones, there is less soil (and therefore, water) within that height. IF the layer at the bottom is such that disallows a continuous soil column from the upper layer of the soil to the pot bottom, the water will perch above the drainage layer. The water must follow a path through the soil to the bottom of the pot, then out the drain. The image on the right works as ballast because there is a continuous soil column from top of soil to pot bottom. Water perches in the middle image because there is no continuous column of soil from top of soil to pot bottom because it's disrupted by the "drainage layer". I'll leave you 2 links to look at when you have time. In the meanwhile, keep using a tell to avoid over-watering. It won't matter if you take a couple of weeks or a month to plan your course. Once you understand how important aeration is to root health and thus to the health of the entire organism, and how to effectively control that air:water relationship in the root zone, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how large was the step forward you took. A basic overview of good growing habits. Using ballast to combat excess water retention. Al

bump, wondering if anyone might have any isights here