That’s a provocative title, I know, but it’s just plants.
Some of the plants in my now disassembled test wall are going into LouAnn’s wall. Planting them back in soil while waiting for LouAnn’s wall construction would be counter productive (pay attention, this is important) because water roots and soil roots are different. The plants from the test wall already have water roots. They can be planted into a new wall and experience no period of adjustment. If I put the plants back into soil the roots would have to change and the plant would spend a while being limp and no new growing would occur while this was happening. When I wash the roots off to insert the plant in the new wall the plant roots would again have to adjust and would spend the period of time the roots were adjusting limp and producing no new growth.
I’m trying to bypass that entire process by leaving the plant roots sitting in the gutter. They get flooded every time the wall is water due to the strip of felt I have running through the gutter drain. The plants look good, I don’t have anything that’s wilting.
Just to be VERY clear, roots growing in water are different than roots growing in soil are different than roots grown in a flood and drain environment. Got it?
If I wash the dirt off roots and insert the plant in my plant wall, the plant will go through a period of adjustment before it gets happy and grows. If I take a plant out of one grow wall and insert it into another grow wall, no adjustment period occurs. If I take a plant from a plant wall and stick it in water (no flood and drain) I am assuming the same adjustment period will occur. I am making that assumption because plant wall roots get lots of oxygen when the wall drains. That doesn’t occur if they sit in water.