Reddit reviews Masonry Mason's Line Braided Nylon 500' Yellow Sz 18 6" Core

No its just bright fluorescent string. Here and Here are the ones I used. I have blacklights in this room, which is the reason the strings look like that. As for a tutorial, I kind of found a way to connect the patterns without needing to cut the string. Here is the pattern that is repeated.

Absolutely!! I actually didn’t know what they were called at first, spotted them in a nursery where a whole tray of plants was sitting on top of another tray with water and the little plants all had strings out of the drainage hole and in the water. By the way, googling “string from bottom of nursery pot” didn’t get me anything useful. Lol. Eventually, I stumbled upon a vacation wicking article and had an aha moment!

It’s a little magical string that pulls water up into the soil from a container of water. The awesome benefit is that it won’t overwater, once the soil is good and moist, it stops pulling up water. (So says the internet.) Use very cautiously with plants that like a dry period between watering. (I’m looking at you, pussy ears aka Kalanchoe tomentosa.)

There’s probably some nice houseplant articles about this, I’ll just summarize my methods. :)

SETUP
I’m using a synthetic nylon string, feeding it out thru the drainage hole, leaving about 4 inches out, then the rest I’m seating snuggly into the plant’s rootball. I usually wrap it around in middle-ish area close to the roots or try to run it thru the center. (Depends on which method won’t be too invasive to the poor thing.)

Idea is very similar to self watering pots that use capillary action, except my ball of nylon cost way less and literally turns any pot into self watering while I’m away for week+. The wick has to be synthetic (nylon or something) and not cotton because mold and etc can live in cotton. Yuck!

This is what I’m using: The Premier Line ML339 Mason's Line 500-Foot Fluorescent Yellow Braided Nylon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001RJ6YSK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_iANzDbA9ZJHQ9

SOIL
Type of soil should not impact wickability. I’ve got a few mixes in the works. Have been trying to switch everything to organic mix and organic fertilizers (keeps microbes alive) instead of synthetic or peat. (Turns out there’s some environmental issues with peat being abused and not renewable at the rate it’s dug up.) I haven’t used sand, I’ve got perlite mixed in quite a bit.

I’m pretty sure I’m repotting things more than necessary. So far though no one has dropped dead or gone to shock. Yay happy plants in good dirt!

VACATION
On a regular day, the wick is hidden under the pot in the saucer. On vacation day, I’ll set everyone up with their own cup/Tupperware/bucket of water and sit the pot on top with wick in water.

Biggest wicking test was being away for 10 days. I came back and everyone was happy and watered! Biggest vacation problem was actually my plant locations didn’t have optimal lighting. They were quite unhappy, I’ve started using a light meter app now and being more generous on sunlight.

REGULAR WATERING
I have also been experimenting with using wicks to regularly water, because this may help prevent overwatering or under-watering. Starting with my very moisture loving plants (ferns, ivies), I’ve setup rocks in the saucer and wick is touching the bottom, when I water I’ll fill up the saucer with water and let the wick pull up proper amount instead of me guessing. (I’m still top watering a little bit, but not the full run until water comes from drainage hole.) I’m not keeping constant water in the rocks, but I will fill them up as needed to water these plants. For ferns, this literally seems to be constant water. Lol. I think that helps raise humidity too and I’m not worried about some water evaporating instead of wicking. I water in morning and check back in evening to make sure wicking worked!

ISSUES
There has been some discrepancy in effective watering depending on how young the plant is. I think that’s because the wicks do need to be near the roots or maybe my yarn isn’t thick enough. I’m leaning toward my installation being the issue though. Because some of these were setup using chopstick method (take wick, wrap around chopstick and gently stick up a drainage hole) rather than actual proper planting with the wick. I will fix these in spring, don’t want to disturb my babies so close to winter.

Overall, I’m super happy with my wick setup. Only plants that don’t have them are succulents.


Hope you find this useful!!!