I also questioned size of pot in my original post, but didn't say that you should use smaller one. Karen is right. If you find that plan is tipping pt over, you can place a larger rock or 2 on top of the mix. I use large rocks to support newly repotted plants, but they can be good counterweights too. Or use pot that is not so deep but wider at the base, so it is more stable. Terracotta/clay pots are also more stable, because they are heavy. I use mostly plastic for that reason. I also mentioned that I would cut of leaves that are mushy - didn't say that you should since I really can't see the mushines in your photo. I keep succulents in smaller pots. Not because "they like it" as some ppl suggest, but for lack of space. If plant gets too big, I rather divide it and give away some. The reason I do not grow Aloe vera - it's leaves grow quite long... I know that pp used put some rocks or pieces of broken terracotta pots over drainage hole to prevent mix from falling out. Use piece of window screen or any other mesh with small openings. Or even piece of landscape fabric (it lets water thru), or coffee filter. Even piece of newspaper will work, but it will decompose.

This is a ginger plant. Was doing just fine and growing a lot. i discovered these spots appearing on the leaves a week or two ago.. they seem to be spreading. I touched a stalk and there‘s a bit of a sticky substance (as well as some visible on the leaves too). What’s wrong and how can I fix it? thanks.

I started out top watering but I was never sure how much to give and would sometimes see gnats which made me think I was overwatering. Gnats are a fair indication the upper portion of the grow medium is remaining too wet for too long. This can be due to the medium being overly water-retentive, the grower watering at intervals too short, or a combination of both. I will try watering and letting it drain as you suggested. How often would you recommend and should it just take a few seconds or so to completely soak the soil or should I be letting the water run through for longer? The ideal way to water is slowly, so you're evenly covering the entire top surface of the soil column. When water appears at the drain hole, stop watering and wait a few minutes (10 or so) and then add additional water. Ideally, at least 20% of the entire volume of water applied in both applications should exit the drain hole and not have a pathway back into the pot, which would be the undoing of the reason for watering to beyond the point of soil saturation. If you are still getting the sense the soil is holding too much water, the simple act of just tipping the pot to a 45* angle after watering will force additional water from the medium. A and B are the same pot, except that B has been tipped to a 45* angle. Notice the difference in how much less excess water B holds in comparison to A. This is a simple way of making a big difference in limiting the amount of excess water a planting can hold. For pots the size of which are easily managed, try taking advantage of Newton's First Law of Motion. Immediately after a thorough watering, hold the pot in one hand over the sink, lawn ..... and move it downward, then sharply reverse the direction to upward. You'll immediately note that a good measure of 'excess' water will “continue downward in a straight line” and exit the drain hole. The sharper the reversal of direction, the more water exits the drain hole. When you have repeated the exercise until water no longer exits the drain hole on the reversal of direction, you will have eliminated all excess water and your plants will regard you with a newfound sense of awe. To easily determine what watering intervals are, follow instructions (below) re making/ using a wooden tell. Proper watering is a critical aspect of any plant care regimen. Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is a complete nutritional supplementation program from a single source. It is arguably the best 'go to' all purpose fertilizer product on the market for a variety of reasons. If you water as I mentioned and fertilize about every 3rd or 4th watering in the summer and about every 5th or 6th watering in winter, you should be fine. That will be on the low side, giving you room to increase the solution concentration if you think it's required. To keep track of when it's time to fertilize each plant, drop a marble or button in the pot whenever you water, that way you'll know what watering is 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. When you fertilize pick up the objects and start over until it's time to fertilize again. 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. 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. Questions? Al

Here is what I would do: * Unpot the plant(s). * Melt a drain hole through the bottom of the pot at the sidewall. * Place a plastic or clay pot upside down in the bottom of the pot the plant is in. There should be at least 1/2" between the rim of the overturned pot and the inside of the sidewall. Cover the drainhole(s) in the overturned pot with insect screen or a piece of plastic. The cover is only to stop soil from falling through the drain holes. (See D below for a sense of how much excess water this simple trick will eliminate) * Insert a wick through the hole in the bottom of the pot. If you wish, you can melt a second hole through the bottom opposite the first; then, a single wick can be used. I use 100% rayon mop strands for the wicks. They work VERY well; so well in fact, that they allow me to water plants in the 5:1:1 mix on a schedule, which is supposed to be taboo. * When you water, water thoroughly so you wet the entire soil column. Tip the just watered pot at a 45* angle (see B above) so a drain hole with a wick through it is at the lowest point (see E above). The wick should hang at least 3" below the pot bottom until it stops draining. It should drain all or almost all of the excess water the soil holds. See the mophead in the image below (along with some of the repotting tools I use). The following sequence shows a wick set-up for pots with a single drain hole. The wick works better when the hole is through the bottom at the sidewall. I honestly did not think a cast iron plant would be fussy in their choice of soil composition. Most plants commonly grown as houseplants (other than cacti and some succulents) do not vary much in what they want insofar as a grow medium and moisture levels. They almost ALL want a medium that is evenly damp or moist with plenty of air porosity to drive root function. Where they DO vary is where the limits to what they will tolerate lie. The most commonly grown houseplants all tolerate indoor conditions. Some are known to tolerate low light or dry soil conditions better than others, but very few will tolerate the watering cycle that includes a large fraction of roots completely inundated for such long periods. A well-made 5:1:1 mix will (structurally) last much longer than media based on peat/ coir/ compost/ composted forest products, and can generally be watered almost at will without serious consequences in the form or limited root function or poor root health. The reason a 5:1:1 mix with too much fine material can't offer the same benefits as a 5:1:1 mix with an appropriate fraction of fine material is exactly the same reason that adding a bit bark and perlite to a poorly made commercial mix doesn't work. It is essential the the volume of particles larger than about 1/8" make up somewhere around 80-85% of the mix. Examples: A) If you have a jar of peat and add an equal measure of pine bark thinking it will improve aeration, it will be a failure because there is more than enough peat to fill all pore space between bark particles. B) If you have a commercial grow medium you feel is holding too much water and try to amend it with pine bark and or perlite, thinking it will improve aeration, it will also be a failure unless you add so much bark and perlite that, combined, they make up a fraction of the medium by far larger than the original soil you started with. In fact, adding pine bark and or perlite to a water-retentive medium continually DECREASES o/a air porosity until reaching "threshold proportion", where there is no longer enough fine material to fill pores between the coarse material. From that point on, adding additional coarse material significantly increases o/a aeration. Al