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Zombiefreak
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Water softener water, killing house plants?Heard of this?
This was something my sister mentioned to my mom that water softened water can kill house plants becaus of the salt levels and the water being robbed of certain nutrients has anyone ever heard of this before. Also would it potentially effect bonsai in the same way. I'd like to see if anyone has heard of or knows anything about this subject.
Last edited by Zombiefreak on Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
from what little research I did on soft water, I think you would be better off just using normal water. I have houseplants that I have been watering with tap water for years, and they're doing fine. I think tap would be considered "hard", but I'm not sure. Also, I don't know why you would be using soft water in the first place. up until a little while ago I didnt know there even was soft and hard water. I'm not very knowlegable on this subject, but id say just keep doing what you are doing..if its working...if it isnt broken, don't fix it. Changin watering drastically might harm the plant more than help it. Maybe you could ween it by mixing the two if you really want to switch. just a thought.
Zombie,
Soft water can be dangerous for some plants but regular tap water should be fine unless its too "hard" (mineral heavy) which over time can lead to mineral build up in the soil, making water obsorb less readily. If you're worried about it and it rains a lot where you are, you can collect rain water and store it in clean glass containers, or you can distill the water yourself (most people think thats more work than its worth), buy distilled water, or even just get regular jugs of bottled water since those have lower mineral content than most well-waters. Or if you haven't been having any problems so far, just keep doing whatever you're doing and it should be fine.
fem
Soft water can be dangerous for some plants but regular tap water should be fine unless its too "hard" (mineral heavy) which over time can lead to mineral build up in the soil, making water obsorb less readily. If you're worried about it and it rains a lot where you are, you can collect rain water and store it in clean glass containers, or you can distill the water yourself (most people think thats more work than its worth), buy distilled water, or even just get regular jugs of bottled water since those have lower mineral content than most well-waters. Or if you haven't been having any problems so far, just keep doing whatever you're doing and it should be fine.
fem
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Zombiefreak
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Yeah it seems to be fine so far but its worth making a mental note of. Distilled water conatins no nutrients what so ever. I guess thats where you would just step up with fertilizing your tree. Rain water is ok but generally gets a bunch of junk in it. I guess you could put cheese cloth over your jars to screen it. It wasn't a major concern just a subject I thought I may bring up as a consideration.
I ran into the same problem.
I live near one of the worlds largest copper mine. Sooooo yea, the water was hard. I found out that my softened water was bad for my bonsai. Its got chemicals in it etc... My hard water is better, which I get from a different source, but it can leave salty spots on the leaves. So its a tough toss up.
I live near one of the worlds largest copper mine. Sooooo yea, the water was hard. I found out that my softened water was bad for my bonsai. Its got chemicals in it etc... My hard water is better, which I get from a different source, but it can leave salty spots on the leaves. So its a tough toss up.