Housewives make this mistake when watering their “green pets”.
Advanced gardeners have found another use for expanded clay, which is usually used as drainage.
The lightweight porous material helps prevent excess moisture from damaging the roots of indoor plants.
During each replanting, flower growers do not forget about the layer of expanded clay at the bottom of the pot.
The trick with expanded clay
Any flower will die if overwatered. Even the notorious chlorophytum may not survive. Saving a plant whose roots are rotting is a difficult task.
Therefore, flower growers use a simple trick. Small expanded clay is not placed at the bottom of the pot, but mixed with the soil.
This way they solve two problems at once. Firstly, the soil becomes looser, the roots get more air.
Secondly, moisture will be removed even faster, so the likelihood of root rot is reduced by half.
What to replace expanded clay with
Expanded clay can be replaced with another material. For example, drainage for indoor plants can be made of stone (pebbles, crushed stone, gravel), coconut fiber, foam plastic.
These materials do not accumulate moisture and do not affect the acidity of the soil. Thus, broken bricks and clay shards, like expanded clay, can shift the pH towards an alkaline reaction.
