The Cachepot Problem

If there is one thing in this guide worth acting on immediately, it is this: go and check whether your pots drain.

A cachepot is a decorative outer pot with no hole in it. Plants are sold sitting inside them in a thin plastic nursery pot, and the arrangement looks like a planted pot. It is not. When you water, everything that drains out of the nursery pot collects invisibly in the bottom of the decorative one, and the roots sit in it until it evaporates — which, in a sealed ceramic container, takes a very long time.

This produces a plant that declines steadily for no apparent reason. The owner is watering correctly by any normal standard. The soil looks damp rather than sodden. Nothing about the visible situation suggests drowning, and the standard diagnostic advice — check the top inch of soil — misses it completely.

There are two fixes and both are easy. Either drill or buy pots with drainage holes and use a saucer you can actually empty, or keep the cachepot and lift the inner pot out to water it, letting it drain fully in a sink before returning it.

It is not a glamorous piece of advice. It has probably saved more houseplants than any other single change.