I just dragged out my drill and 7/16" bit. Time to poke three holes into the bottoms of some plastic flowerpots. I have sliced holes into the plastic pots with my pocketknife. But that’s only when I don’t have a drill handy. The plastic tends to rip and tear using a pocketknife.
Why do they sell them that way? Don’t they understand flowers or other plants will die if left in standing water?
I once bought a half whiskey barrel and didn’t drill big enough holes in the bottom. I had 3 inches of standing water in the planter after a heavy rain. I finally had to drill holes in the side (about even with the soil level) to get that water out of there.
WAG - It’s another design/engineering step that was missed or left out.
I have two very large resin planters I bought from Costco. No drainage holes. I had to drill about a dozen half-inch holes in the bottom of each for drainage. No big deal.
Are there any plants that do better without the holes, perhaps some ones that live in aquatic/semiaquatic environments. If so then adding the holes is easier then patching them up.
Undoubtedly, but are most people who buy plastic flowerpots using them for non-planting purposes which require no holes in the vessel? How did the manufacturers become aware of demand for hole-less flowerpots? Why do/did people not buy, say, buckets, instead of flowerpots? And why do clay flowerpots remain so hole-ful?
FWIW, the only plastic pots I’ve ver seen either have holes or have blanks you can pop out to make holes.
also people will place a clay pot with a hole inside a plastic pot without a hole. you then don’t need a saucer and it holds more flow through than a saucer.
I think it’s just as simple as why caterers under-salt their food. It’s easier to add than to take away.
If you need holes, pot-makers assume that you have a drill and that you can put the number and type of holes you need into the container. If they provide pre-cut holes in their design, it’ll be virtually impossible for you to seal the container again.
There are enough people using gardening containers for things like self-contained water features or containers that hold other pots inside that their logic seems to make sense from a market perspective.
Because (a) it’s a lot harder to drill holes in a clay pot than in a plastic one and (b) clay pots are unlikely to be used for some of the other purposes described here.
Can someone tell this city boy why I would want the water leaking from the flowerpot onto my floor? If too much water is bad for the plants, can’t you remove the excess with a cup or spoon, and put less in next time?
Sorry, but I still don’t get it. How often does this happen? How hard is it to figure out how much water to give it? Too much food is unhealthy for our zoological pets, but we learn the proper dosage; are the botanicals really so different?
Also: how often does it happen that the holes allow the soil to dry out too fast?
I grow African Violets. Lots of them. They are very prone to root rot if left in overly damp soil or standing water. They will also wilt, of course, with too little water. They are planted in pots with holes, in highish-drainage soil that does not absorb much excess water.
It is much easier to pour a moderate amount of water into the pot, and let it drain out the holes onto the tray that the pots stand on, then to try to get the exact amount of water they need without going over or under. This amount varies according to the amount of sun they are getting and the amount of humidity in the air- I would have to guesstimate very accurately if the pots couldn’t drain.
