Let’s talk about WATER for some of our more particular plants. Many of you recommend distilled water for these lovelies. Is bottled drinking water a decent substitute? Also what about tap water that sits out for awhile - I’ve heard that can help?? Would boiling & cooling tap water help? As you can tell I’m reluctant to go full distilled..:
👋 I don’t compromise on my carnivorous plants… distilled only & special carnivorous soil only! My other plants receive a variety of tap, filtered or collected water that I don’t want to pour down the drain to be wasted. I feel as long as you use a good quality liquid fertilizer, then you are good either way. Also, switching between bottom watering and top watering helps with any mineral build up! 😊🪴
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I use a brita pitcher that I keep filled, so the water is room temperature. My water is very hard. Most of the plants are doing well, but I do use distilled water for my carnivorous plant. I think I may need to switch my crocodile fern to it too. It did really well with filtered for a while, but it’s improvement has kind of stalled.
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Leaving tap water out might help some because it lets the chlorine evaporate, but it doesn’t get rid of chloramine or hard minerals. Distilled water has been boiled into a steam and then condensed back into liquid, so simply boiling it and cooling the tap water wouldn’t replace that process. Bottled drinking water typically has minerals in it, so I don’t think that would be a replacement for distilled, either. I think the closest thing to distilled water for plants would be collected rain water, though even rain water collects some nitrogen and stuff on its way down if that’s your concern.
3 likes personally I haven’t found distilled water to make a difference for my plants, even my pickier calatheas and alocasias. most of the time when people think they need distilled water over tap water, there’s actually another more common issue going on. however, it’s worth noting that my city’s tap water is considered to be some of the highest quality in the country, so this might be different depending on your local tap water filtration processes. I have also heard that some carnivorous plants truly need distilled water only- I don’t own any myself so I can’t speak to that. I like rain water best for my plants, but I don’t always go through the effort of collecting it because tap water does usually work just fine.
1 like Appreciate your input!
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Madison knows what’s going on. I can only add that some plants are sensitive to different chemicals or minerals. My area, water is heavy with lime. Calatheas and dracaenas don’t like lime. They are usually fine with the chlorine in tap. Bottled drinking water has minerals in it. So to avoid all possible problems, you need to use distilled or RO water. Which is what I use on all my plants. Pretty much same as distilled. What I said about lime is from my research of quite a while ago. I suggest you do your own research.
2 likes What is RO water?
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1 likeMy water is very hard and have lost 5 plants to it last year. I switched to distilled and my plants are doing a lot better especially my orchid that is doing crazy things! lol
I do have hard water. Maybe I should just bite the bullet. Debi, how long after you switched did you notice a difference?
0 likesMy tap water is good for most things, but my local water is really high quality (it is hard, but I've never had issues with mineral buildup). You can test your tap to see what issues it might have. I do water my most finicky cuttings and propagations with distilled, though; they get mold if i don't
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