Posted on May 28, 2025

Do I need to use Pesticides?” Sprays offer a quick fix for weeds or aphids, but their ingredients can harm humans and the environment and may even worsen the problems they claim to solve. The negative impact of pesticides is a cause for concern, and reducing their use has many benefits, with better alternatives available.”

Quick facts: U.S. homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers do on their crops. Without the interference of pesticides, populations of pests and predators can reach a natural balance. This balance, where some pests are always present but at tolerable levels, is a testament to nature's resilience and the potential for sustainable gardening. Interspersing prized plants with various others attracts beneficial creatures such as bees, wasps, moths, and butterflies.

Understanding Root Systems: Are all the Roots the Same? 

Roots comprise a significant portion of a plant's weight and serve as the anchor, mining for nutrients and water, and interacting with the diverse soil ecosystem. Understanding roots as a plant's priority and investing significant energy into their growth is crucial in comprehending the plant's development and health.

Taproots- Plants' primary root from which smaller “lateral” roots arise to spread through the soil. Driving straight down to form an important anchor and access water deep in the ground. Like animals in hibernation, they store energy reserves for the harsh winter. (Natural evolution, carrots) Fibrous-Dense mass of woody roots that emerge from the seed and the base of the stem as it grows. These roots usually spread quite close to the soil surface, quickly absorbing rainfall to supply the growing plant.

Can We Simply Dig up and Move the Plants?

While seemingly traumatic, transplanting is a process that plants can endure. Their roots are sliced with spades, pried from the earth, and then sunk into foreign soil. However, with care and attention, most garden plants can be moved, and the surviving roots can adapt and continue to grow despite losing many of their vital root hairs. Damaged roots can't take up enough water for leaves, resulting in wilt and death, known as transplant shock.

Reasons for Transplanting

“While growing the right plant in the right place helps plants thrive, transplanting is necessary. " Transplanting: Reasons for transplanting. Learn when and why you might need to transplant your plants, from changing garden conditions to plant health and design.

Do all Plants Get Their Nutrients Srom the soil?

Faced with the challenges of natural selection/evolution, from serving in nutrient-poor and soil-free habitats, some plants have developed unusual ways to glean nutrients from the environment. Plants struggling in nutrient-poor waterlogged soils have evolved to repurpose the molecular machinery, using their roots to eat meat. Such plants trap insects whose protein is abundant and rich in nitrogen and other essential nutrients. Carnivores have evolved independently at least six times throughout the history of flowering plants. Venus fly traps Dionaea muscipula) And pitcher plants (Nepenthes) ruthlessly lure, capture, and digest their prey.

Leaching off other plants is another ingenious method evolved to avoid the need for soil. Parasitic plants, including mistletoe (Viscum album) and dodder, transform their roots into tendrils called haustoria, which burrow into a host plant's tissue, siphoning off water, nutrients, and precious sugars. Epiphytes find homes among the branches of others without harming them, including orchids and air plants(Tillandsia). These plants need no soil and instead use their wiry roots to cling to other plants, rocks, or even cliff faces. These aerial roots extract moisture directly from the soil, and epiphytes harvest nutrients by catching flecks of dust and soil in their tiny leaf hairs (trichomes).

What is Hydroponic Growing/Aquaponics?

Hydroponic- growing plants in water instead of soil may offer a solution to harmful intensive farming practices.

For all plants, soil provides a firm foundation, anchoring roots, mixing minerals and organic matter to hold water and nutrients, and providing space for air. Some plants have shown a natural selection trait to overcome this mountain; they float on rivers, with their roots dangling into the water. Most plants can grow in water if the water supply provides enough nutrients. Oxygen and a manageable pH balance are also key.

Alternative solutions to soil: Clay pebbles, perlite, vermiculite, or rockwood(fiber spun from molten rock).

Standard Methods of Practice:

The Dutch bucket system: Pots are hooked to a drip irrigation system that delivers a diluted fertilizer solution, and spaces between the substrate pieces allow oxygen to reach the roots.

(Visual picture)- A simple set-up where a drip irrigation system delivers nutrient solution to plants in pots of soil-free substrate. Water is channeled into a tank and recycled. Roots grow through a soil-free substrate. Nutrients dissolved in water are drip-fed into pots. The water pump pumps back and forth.

How Can We Keep pot Plants Healthy?

Roots embrace being in soil, they can explore for water and nutrients, aided by soil bacteria and fungi. In contrast, living in a container puts a stop to that and calls on the grower to meet a plants need instead.

3 Step Formula

Container choice- Boots,cups,bathubs, buckets and even cans; along as drainage holes are made in the base for water to escape. Smaller pots tend to dry out more quickly and require watering more often, than larger pots. Scientist have discovered te bigger the container, the larger a plant will grow;roots have unique ability to sense their pot size and limit aboveground growth to match their external spread. “What a container is made from will influence growing conditions”. Terracotta pots have a porous structure that asbors water, from the growering medium, in effect need to be watered more often than plastic pots. Ceramicm concert and Terracotta, all have mineral that have air in them, insulatting potting mix. Be careful when using metal pots;which conduct heat rapapidaly, becoming dangerously hot if placed in the summer sun and freezing easily in winter.

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