Submitted 3 hours ago by acockworkorange@mander.xyz to houseplants@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/4cf0b9e3-3f45-4d85-a1b4-fccea844400f.jpeg
I work in a windowless office. My wife got me a plant to spruce up the place, it’s supposed to be watered once a fortnight and need very little light.
It sat in the dark in the weekend and when I got it it had these water drops on many of its leaves. What’s up?
It might be really humid in there or it had a lot of water. It’s letting out excess water
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 2 hours ago Plants evapotranspire.
Fancy word for what you might call “sweating”. Normally you won’t see it because the humidity evaporates as quickly as it builds up in and on the leavds.
Water moves from the roots out to the leaves to transport itself and nutries. The excess generally doesn’t go back down, but instead evaporates through pores on the leaves.
I’m not sure this is that, but if the air in the office gets cold/humid, you’ll see the water bead up on the leaves instead of evaporating.
Thanks! So not a sign of over watering or some other stress, I take?
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 2 hours ago I don’t think so.
If you know the species of the plant you might look up what to look for in terms of under/over-watering.
But “morning dew” is something you’ll see on plants all the time in nature. That’s when the cold air during the night causes the water to bead up their leaves. It’ll disappear as it falls off and starts evaporating again with warmer temperatures.
My dieffenbachia drips water from the tips of its leaves after a thorough watering. I believe it’s called guttation. I think that’s another reason the leaves get wet.
thagoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
It went over your budget spreadsheet this weekend and it has some bad news for you
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 hours ago
Oh no.