To celebrate Water Saving Week, let Dominic show you how using LAVA-LITE+ when potting your plants can help reduce your water usage, creating a self watering system that allows air to the roots, keeping your plant nice and healthy.
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| [Music] | Lava-LIVE logo introduction - a hand comes into screen and clicks a button that reveals the logo and the brand colours. |
| [Dominic] Hello, I'm Dominic and welcome to another episode of Lava-LIVE. Today we're going to talk about a complete self-watering system for indoor plants and outdoor plants as well. One of the biggest problems that people have with keeping plants is over watering. It's very easy to do, most people know and understand that plants do need water, but they only need a bit of water, but they also need air. Now, when you over water a plant, what that does is that displaces all the air from the soil that it's growing in. When we use LAVA-LITE+ instead of that soil, it contains air within the LAVA-LITE+ itself, in the stone itself, and it also holds up to 25% moisture, which is perfect. So if you've got a system where you don't have any drainage holes, it may be a house plant that's got a nice container or even an outdoor pot plant, that way we can allow it to...you can never over water it. So, we'll talk you through that process. The reason behind it is through capillary action. If you're watering soil, the soil will take in the moisture and it will expel the air within that soil in order to make way for the water, so you're technically removing all the oxygen and all the air from the plant substrate. By adding the LAVA-LITE+ we are creating voids, we are creating at least a pocket, so you've got water within the system. You've also got up to 25% moisture retention within the system, and we'll go through and show you how to set that up. |
Dominic talks briefly to camera about why a self-watering system is a good idea for indoor plants. |
| [Dominic] So, what we're going to do to create this self-watering system is we're going to put about five centimetres of the LAVA-LITE+ at the bottom of this system, at the bottom of the planter, and then we're going to use the soil that the plant comes with. Always check that it's got a nice root base in it so you know it's a nice healthy plant. We then put that in the container on top of the LAVA-LITE+ and instead of filling it in where we'd normally fill them with compost, we're going to actually fill that with LAVA-LITE+. Now what that creates is it creates a chamber at the bottom, which will hold any excess water, but it also allows for air and water to be held around the side of the plants, and what will happen is the plants will put roots out into the air voids and they will be able to benefit from the air that's been retained within the planter, and it also will allow for water roots to develop which largely don't need a lot of air but it allows a lot of water back into the plant. Capillary reaction will allow it to feed water from the chamber filled with the LAVA-LITE+ at the bottom and that will then continually feed the plant, so essentially you could actually fill the water all the way to the top of the plant pot and it would never, ever, ever be too much water for that plant. Obviously, we'll still have to keep adding water but not in the amounts that you would normally have to do, and you certainly won't be flooding the plants and causing any damage to the roots and root rot. So, as you can see, it's as easy as that to set it up. It's very, very effective. Another thing to remember is that once you've decided you've probably had enough, or the plants out growing its pots, you can just take the LAVA-LITE+ out, re-wash that, clean it up and if you just want to discard it, dig it into your garden borders. It's very, very easy, as to say, there's no chemicals and it's inorganic, so there's no risk of any degradation at all. |
Dominic demonstrates the steps involved in creating a self-watering system using LAVA-LITE+. |
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