Keep Your Plants Cool With This Genius Pool Noodle Hack
Gardening is a great hobby because it is good for your health – both mental and physical. Plus, a small garden or collection of potted plants in the correct place can really transform your house or apartment into a cozy and beautiful home. You can go for some fuss-free beginner plants or arrange large flower-filled planters to sit on your front porch or balcony. However, those large barrel-style planters, while aesthetically pleasing, can come with their own set of issues. Specifically, large planters often don't come with drainage holes. This can lead to your plants sitting in water which can cause root-end rot or, during the hot months, can cause your plants to overheat and die. Luckily, the solution to this problem comes from the inexpensive and easy-to-find summer classic: the pool noodle.
In fact, according to a viral video on TikTok, to keep your plants healthy and cool all summer all you have to do is cut up a pool noodle so that its pieces are slightly shorter than the height of your container. Then, stand the noodles vertically inside the container. The noodles should be touching but not packed in too tightly. Finally, cover them with potting soil (both around the noodle and inside the hole) and then add in your plants. No one will ever know that the noodles are there and your plants will thrive in the well-drained soil.
The benefits don't stop there
Besides making sure you have a built-in drainage system in your large decorative planter or pot, adding in some pool noodles has a few extra benefits. First of all, the pool noodles can act as an extra layer of insulation inside your planters which can help keep your soil moist and cool during dry spells. Furthermore, pool noodles can help you save water because you will be using less potting soil and won't need as much water to completely saturate the container. This is especially useful if you live in an area that experiences yearly droughts and water restrictions.
Lastly, adding pool noodles to your large planters can also save you some money. Potting soil is surprisingly expensive and large pots can take multiple bags of the stuff before they are even remotely full. So, by adding in some extra lightweight pool noodles at the bottom, you can fill up more space and cut your soil usage to one bag or less. This will also make your planters lighter, meaning that you can more easily move them around the garden or into the shade during particularly hot days.
A pool noodle planter isn't ideal for every situation
However, it is important to note that this hack works best for shallow-rooted plants. This is because if you choose deep-rooting plants (like trees, shrubs, or bushes), your plant will likely need all the space inside a large pot to grow properly and the pool noodles will simply get in the way. This hack is perfect if you'd like to fill your planter with a medicinal herb garden, succulents, or short-rooted flowers like violas, gardenias, petunias, marigolds, zinnias, and snapdragons.
This hack is also best used for planters that are on your front porch or under an awning of some kind. This is because you will want to control the amount of water that the planter receives and avoid allowing the planter to be exposed to heavy rainfall. The reason for this is that too much water inside the planter may cause your pool noodles to float which will push the soil and plants up and out of the container.