How to Catch an Overwaterer

Overwatering is a real threat to plants.

Over my years as an interiorscaper, I have warned several technicians about the danger of overwatering foliage, given curious strangers horticulture advice, and provided plant care lessons to different local organizations.

Without fail, at least one person in the group comments, “I thought the more water, the better,” or, “It looked like my plant was dying so I figured it needed more water.”

I have concluded, people in general are more likely to kill a plant with too much water than from neglect. This consensus of the more water the better can create havoc in an interiorscape account. 

Overwatering in Action

For instance, I have a manager’s office with a mass cane that I’ve replaced twice due to root rot. I find this strange, since her door is often locked, and we usually must skip service until the following week. 

My first thought: “Maybe the technician is putting extra water when possible, as it often has to go without 1-2 service days?” Several times, I stressed to the service tech to back off and keep the soil on the dry side since the mass cane can survive fine being dry.

Despite stressing to her to use a water meter, soil probe, or touch to check moisture levels, I found the mass cane saturated every time I checked on it. I blamed the technician until the situation continued after I assigned another technician to service that account. 

When I replaced the mass cane for the third time, the new tech discovered the culprit. Even though the manager knew we were responsible for servicing her mass cane, she would overwater it herself because she thought it would suffer from us not being able to access her office. 

Lesson Learned

I learned a very valuable lesson: you cannot always assume it’s your service tech overwatering even when your clients are fully aware that they pay us to do the maintenance work. Thankfully, in that circumstance, the manager confessed to adding water. Now her third mass cane is doing much better.

What happens, though, when nobody admits to supplementing water? 

I have had a few accounts where I knew someone inside the building was dumping their leftover water or beverage into the plants. When the liquid is somebody’s morning cup of coffee with cream and sugar, it’s easy to prove, as the soil gives off a rancid smell over time. This has happened to me quite a few times over the years, and each time, my staff was blamed for putting some kind of awful chemical into the dirt. Once I explained to my client that this is the distinct smell of spoiled milk, an employee will normally confess and the problem resolved.

A Little Detective Work

Employee water abuse is much more difficult to prove. I’ve had clients assure me that all their staff knew not to water the plants. Proving the plant is being overwatered can be a tricky dilemma, since you don’t want to insinuate your client is a liar. You also don’t want to lose all your profits by continuous replacements and gnat problems. 

One trick I’ve used is placing a curved white paper around the top of the container soil with a barrier like plastic between the paper and soil so it’s not touching the already wet dirt. Then date the paper with a sharpie. I also add moss on top to hide it. I do this the day after the plant has been serviced and check it a day or two before it’s scheduled to be serviced again.

If the paper shows signs of water spots, I now have proof someone other than our staff has been adding water. Sometimes, you may have to do this more than once to catch the culprit. If you never find any water spots, you may need to shadow your tech on their watering techniques. 

When I do discover water spots on the paper, I show it to the client and ask them nicely, if they could reiterate to their employees, not to dump any amount of water into the plant containers, since that causes all sorts of issues, including nasty smells and breeding grounds for gnats.

I had one client insist for weeks that nobody was giving the plants water until I showed her the paper. That afternoon, my client held a staff meeting and, sure enough, one lady admitted to dumping her leftover water into the reception plants almost every day. Getting proof can make all the difference.