I've found over many years of plant care, that a lot of plants really love to be totally doused, then drained, rather than just a little bit of water now and then. I think it may imitate the conditions of nature, where there's a rainstorm followed by a period of dry, at least for these plants. It also washes dust off the foliage, helping them breathe better.
I have a lot of plants that have to stand on the floor, but I still water thoroughly and use a turkey baster to pull out standing water from the saucers. And the ever-shedding Boston ferns can be shaken into the tub and the foliage swept up later, better than having to sweep the floors.
Even the succulents like this treatment, to my surprise. As long as there's good drainage, all is well.
Take a look at this staghorn fern, coming on by leaps and bounds, as Bertie Wooster would say. I discovered that submerging it about weekly, then leaving it to drain before putting it back in a western window, filtered light through white cotton curtains, suits it fine. It's even started a new basal leaf, as you see, that little green plate at the bottom of the antlers. In fact it's moving so fast I may have to study what to do next.
And I did this today to the accompaniment of early music, of which I'm a total fan. Recorder players typically are. Early meaning medieval to Elizabethan. The later baroque stuff is not to my taste, too showoff, look ma, I can trill, sort of stuff. I love the purity of the real early stuff.
Of course, seven years of singing plainsong almost daily in my convent high school (hs started at that time at age 11 in the UK), may have affected my take on this. We used to sing Masses for visiting priests celebrating in our chapel, which was an unusual one, in that it was fully equipped, consecrated, etc., like a church. Most chapels aren't.
By the time I left school, I could sing ten different masses, and various other small services. From original plainsong notation, not modern transcriptions. Never occurred to us to think it was hard. Mother Gerardine said sing this, so we did..and most of us played modern instruments at home and could sightread modern music notation, too. When I see early music now, in manuscript form, I can still sightread it. Takes me right back to the choir gallery in the chapel.
Today it's Julian Bream's consort playing Elizabethans. If you want to hear what I'm talking about, go here
