Overwatered Plant

Telling when a plant doesn’t have enough water may seem to be a snap, but keep in mind that there’s definitely such a thing as too much water. If puddles form in your garden or an area of it’s quite soggy, all the pores in the soil fill. When this happens, no free oxygen, which needs to get to the roots, is in the. Meanwhile, some plant diseases (like mildew and blight) travel via water and can easily develop and spread in soaked conditions. Sodden roots blacken and rot, and all the aboveground growth subsequently dies. Garden plants in these circumstances, of course, need less water.

Unfortunately, an overwatered plant looks the same as one that’s underwatered! The reason is that an overwatered plant is actually suffering from dehydration because the roots have been damaged by too much water (actually, too little oxygen, because the water has displaced the oxygen); the roots can’t absorb water, so the plant wilts. One difference is that overwatered plants don’t recover from wilt when you apply additional water, but underwatered ones generally do.