Question: I notice that you water by placing your plants on an acrylic material. What is this and how can I get this?
Answer: Most of our mature plants are watered by “capillary mats”. Plants sit atop acrylic matting (or blankets). When plants are dry enough to require watering, we wet these mats (our shelves are waterproof) with a measured amount of water. The soil in the pots makes contact with the wet mats through the drainage hole(s) in the pot bottom, and absorbs the desired amount of water. We’ve found the cheapest, most effective, material is acrylic blankets for about $6 or $7 (less if on sale). We remove the satin edging and cut them to fit our shelves (for those with fewer plants, they can cut to fit into waterproof plastic trays). One twin/full size blanket will cover about 48 square feet of space. Once every 3-4 weeks, we’ll clean them in our washing machine, and they’ll stay usable for a few years.