WHY POT PLANTS SOMETIMES FAIL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 590, 16 February 1929, Page 28

WHY POT PLANTS SOMETIMES FAIL

It flower-pots were kept cleaner than they are, the failure of pot plants would not be so common. A flower-pot is made of porous material for a purpose; soil must contain air, if it is to be of any use to a plant; and the pores of a flower-pot allow air to penetrate—if the pot is clean. If the pores are stopped up with dirt, obviously air cannot enter, the soil becomes sour, and the plant's roots are affected. Before using pots for potting or seed sowing, then, make sure they are clean. And if you have an accumulation of pots in your shed, brig them out and give them a bath. The quickest way is to scrub the pots with hot

water with a lump or two of soda in it. If there is a greeny, mildewy substance on the pots, it would be better to put a few drops of permanganate of potash in the water, instead of soda, to kill any germs or fungus spores. A great mistake made by many amateurs is to paint the flower-pots a green colour, for the sake of effect. This is wrong, because the paint fills up the pores of the pot just as dirt does. Finally, it should be remembered that hew flower-pots must always be soaked before they are used, otherwise they do not runction properly. They should be left iu a bucket of clean water until air bubbles have ceased to rise.