Beginner Gardening: Good Growing Practices - an Overview for Beginners, 1 by GrowInFlorida

GrowInFlorida wrote:
I am having great success with the big self-watering pots from Ikea - the one you see in the picture above, with a red periscope watering tube. The huge tropicals that I repotted 4-5 months ago have given tremendous growth, and look very happy and bright, without fertilizers. You can see the difference between the new bright and the old dark leaves of this ZZ plant. Unlike the self-watering pots from Walmart that I highly do NOT recommend because they always keep plants unhappy and soggy. The bottom compartment of the Ikea pots is separated from the soil, and somehow the soil does not get soggy at all, even if the compartment is filled with water to the top (the buoy always shows the current water level) so you can fill the reservoir to the capacity and forget about the plant for a month. Walmart self-watering pots have no system, just drainage holes and a holding dish below, and the dish is always dirty and collects insects. Moreover, if you want to drain the dirty water it gets super messy since the dish is semi-attached (can fall off the pot if you lift it and will splash all over the place).