Distilled water is healthy for your houseplants because it's free from chemicals, metals, and other impurities. But—distilled water also eliminates beneficial minerals, so your plants won't grow as quickly as with rainwater or filtered water.
While watering your yard plants with bottled water may be impractical, using bottled spring water for your indoor plants will make a big difference for them. To give your plants the absolute best, rainwater and bottled spring water are your best options. Any water containing sugar or salt will hurt them!
Purified water is great for plants as it is void of any harmful bacteria or contaminants that can cause common plant problems like root rot and fungal diseases. Purified water is accessible and often inexpensive, and works well for almost all plants.
Rain/Melted Snow: Rain is by far the best type of water that you can give your plants. It is full of minerals that are necessary for plant growth, and will make your plants grow bigger and healthier than any other type of water.
To mitigate this, be sure to use rainwater or distilled water when you mist your plants. Avoid filtered water, as the salts in many water filters can be damaging to plant roots and leaves. It's also important to regularly dust and clean your leaves.
Distilled water for plants
While the distillation process helps remove contaminants that can be harmful to plants, it also removes minerals that are good for plants. Over time, using distilled water for plants can result in stunted growth and discoloration because they aren't getting the nutrients they need.
You don't need to use distilled water. Believe it or not, tap water is HEALTHIER for your plants. It contains safe levels of healthy minerals. Dangerous chemicals and heavy metals are removed.
Pro: Bottled water can be a great alternative to tap water, if the local water is not safe for plants. If bottled water is the easiest option for you, try to use bottled spring water as it contains natural minerals that help plants grow.
While both water sources should allow the plants to grow, the findings should be that the bottled water will provide more nutrients to the plants than the tap water.
Distilled water is also a good choice and is easy to find at most grocery stores. Finally, you can also use a reverse osmosis filter to make tap water safe for your plants. This type of filter will remove nearly all contaminants from the water, leaving your plants with clean, safe water that won't harm them.
Run your sink into a watering can, cup, or bucket, and let it sit for a good 24 hours. This will allow chemicals like chlorine and fluoride the time to evaporate from the water. We like to have a full watering can ready to go with still water so that if our soil seems dry, we can water our plant without waiting a day.
Some parts are particularly sensitive to specific chemicals found in tap water. Fluoride is damaging to spider plants, corn plants, prayer-plants, dracaena, and peace lilies.
Results: The rainwater and bottled spring water are great at helping plants grow, but the sugar water and salt water actually hurt growing plants. Tap water and distilled water may not hurt the plants, but you'll notice they don't grow as tall and proud as the plants that were fed rain and spring water.
Do not give them tap water or purified drinking water (such as Aquafina or Dasani) or they will quickly turn into mutated carnivorous plants and eat you. (we're just kidding, obviously.) However, your plants will thrive on what is best for them: Pure Spring Water. AIR – here's where the easy part comes in.
Warm water absorbs into soil best. – Some houseplants are sensitive to tap water. Let water sit overnight for chlorine to dissipate before using. – Plants in large planters dry out more slowly than plants in small planters because of the volume of potting soil.
Coffee contains a lot of nitrogen, which not only kills off weeds and bacteria but can also help certain types of plants (a.k.a those that prefer more acidic soil) flourish. Plus, your daily cuppa also contains significant amounts of magnesium and potassium, both of which are key factors in plant growth and health.
If you have well water, pond water, creek water or rain water, your air plants will love that. You can also use bottled spring water. Do not use distilled water as it has fewer natural minerals and nutrients that air plants like.
So if you use distilled water, the nutrient mix does not have optimal mineral balance and/or pH levels. One simple yet highly effective method to counter this is to add Calcium and Magnesium supplements, popularly called Cal-Mag to distilled water.
Using Distilled Water on Plants
The National Student Research Center did an experiment with plants watered with tap, salt, and distilled water. The plants that received distilled water had better growth and more leaves. While that sounds promising, many plants don't mind tap water.
Not only does boiling water remove impurities, but it also kills off any pathogens that could harm humans or animals if consumed. So, by boiling already distilled water, you're increasing its purity even more, creating a safe and happy environment for your indoor and outdoor plants to flourish.
Banana peels contain: calcium, which promotes root growth helps add oxygen to your soil. magnesium, which assists with photosynthesis. sulphur, which helps plants develop strong roots and repel pests.
The best time to water is early in the morning when it's still cool, which preps the plants for a hot day, but that's not always easy to accomplish with a busy schedule. The second-best time is late in the afternoon or early evening.