Let’s discuss how often should you water your Areca Palm to ensure it stays healthy and thriving all year round!
Best suited to bright interiors, Areca Palms require little care and are easy to care for. Their feathery fronds will quickly become the center of attention in your living room! If you are a beginner, you may have some burning questions about the requirements of these plants—the most important being how often you should water your Areca plant indoors!
Where Do Areca Palms Grow Naturally?
The Areca Plam has its origins in the islands of Madagascar. Growing naturally in a warm, tropical place, you can probably guess its care requirements. Since the Areca palm calls the warm, tropical islands its home, it would be used to warm, moist soil with high temperatures and humidity levels. You would need to mimic this climate when growing this plant indoors.
The first thing to remember is that the Areca palm’s water requirements are not exclusive to its temperature, light, and humidity requirements, and all of these are interrelated. Your watering schedule would depend on the temperature and humidity levels in your Areca palm’s microclimate.
For example, the ideal temperature range for this plant is 65°F to 75°F, which is between 18°C and 24°C. In winter, they can tolerate temperatures as low as 13° C (55° F) and, in summer, as high as 29° C (85° F) for short periods. So, you understand that during summers, you will have to ramp up your watering to prevent your plant from drying out and do the opposite during winters, as water would not evaporate as quickly.
How Often Should You Water Your Areca Palm Indoors?
Regarding how often you should water your Areca palm, you must note that this plant needs plenty of watering, coming from subtropical regions. But how do you gauge when your Areca calm needs water? Easy! You do the finger test. Stick your finger into the potting mix of your Areca palm. If the first few inches are moist, your plant is doing great. If you feel the top few inches are dry, your plant is thirsty!
While some swear by watering your Areca palm twice a week, some say watering once every ten days is fine. But every Areca palm is different, and you can be the best judge of moisture levels by doing the finger test. However, your plant will indeed need more water in the summer months. One reason Areca Palm wants more drinks in spring and summer is because these months are their growing seasons and require a lot of moisture and nutrients. As mentioned above, your Areca palm won’t be as thirsty in winter, and you might even reduce watering to once every two weeks.
Another aspect to bear in mind is that you will need to fertilize your Areca palm with a balanced NPK fertilizer every two to three weeks during the growing season. When fertilizing, you will need to dilute it with plenty of water. You wouldn’t want to burn your Areca palm’s roots now, would you?
Just like you lessen watering in the colder months, the same applies to fertilizing. The winter months are not the time when your Areca palm needs nutrients to grow. In fact, fertilizing during this time can lead to salt build-up in the soil, making it acidic. As soon as spring arrives, you can start fertilizing your palm again.
How to Water Your Areca Palm Indoors?
Now that you have a fair idea of when and how often to water your Areca palm when growing it indoors, here are some ways to water your plant. And yes, there are quite a few techniques you might follow when watering your indoor Areca palm.
1. Watering Over the Topsoil
- Using a watering can pour water over the topsoil as you would normally do and watch the excess drain out of the watering holes.
- If you have added a tray under your plant, remove all the accumulated water. Never let your Areca palm sit in water as that will cause root rot.
- After watering, ensure moist but not soggy soil. Areca palms love and need the perfect balance between wet and dry soil.
2. Bottom Watering
- If you have a tray below the plant, fill it with water, ensuring the soil is well in contact with it, and wait about 10 minutes.
- Feel the soil with the finger test to see if it has absorbed enough water and is moist throughout. If yes, remove excess water from the tray. If the soil is still dry, add more water to the tray and wait 20 minutes. Note—The bottom watering method does not help wash away salt and mineral buildup from the soil, so ensure that you also water over the soil occasionally.
3. Water Bath
- Fill a bucket or any other large vessel with lukewarm water.
- Lower your Areca palm plant pot down into the bucket or vessel with water until the part where the stem starts. Ensure that the soil gets a good soak.
- You will start to see bubbles forming; wait until they stop, and then lift the plant pot back up.
- Put your plant back in its tray and check again in an hour to see if it is standing in water. Remove excess water to prevent overwatering and root rot.
4. Humidity Tray
Sometimes, watering may not be enough to keep your Areca palm healthy, especially if you are not providing the correct humidity levels. Since Areca palms need a growing environment mimicking tropical climates, you must provide humidity levels of 50% to 60%. But anything higher can result in fungal infections and pests in your Areca palm.
- To increase humidity to optimal levels around your plant, create a humidity tray with pebbles and water and place your plant pot over it. Ensure that the roots are not submerged or sitting in water. A pebble tray would need regular maintenance, such as changing the water weekly and ensuring the roots are not submerged.
- You could also consider investing in a humidifier instead of making a pebble tray.
- Another way to increase the humidity levels for your Areca palm is to mist the leaves once a week. You can also consider transferring the plant pot into a shower occasionally. This would also help remove dust from the leaves and improve photosynthesis.
Ideal Potting Mix For Growing Areca Palm Indoors
Now that it has been established quite well that Areca palms need moist soil, it means that they need a soil mix with good water-retentive properties and good drainage. The latter is crucial as the Areca palm does not tolerate overwatering. In fact, root rot can set in wherein the roots don’t get any oxygen, and there is no more nutrient flow in the plant.
The ideal soil mix for Areca palms would be one that can hold its shape, hold moisture for a few days for proper plant nourishment, and drain excess water quickly. It should be rich in organic matter and also slightly acidic, as Areca palms prefer.
If you used general potting soil for your Areca palm, you would notice the soil compacting whenever you watered the plant. This compacted soil will prevent oxygen from reaching the palm’s roots. Consider adding vermiculite or coconut coir if you use a commercial potting mix. Add peat moss, pumice, or perlite to your potting mix to prevent compacted soil. These ingredients keep the soil light and fluffy. Besides that, a combination of equal parts of cocopeat, compost, and red soil can also work excellently.
It would be best to use a commercial potting mix specifically designed for palms, or you could also use a mixture of sand, perlite, and peat moss. This combination allows good drainage, oxygenation, and nutrient absorption, which are essential for the palm’s healthy growth. Last but not least, you could consider placing your Areca palm in a loam-based soil mix with a good amount of sand. This, too, can help maximize critical factors like soil aeration, soil drainage, and better nutrient intake.
Signs of Overwatering or Underwatering Areca Palms
Irregular watering can be bad and fatal for your Areca palm. While overwatering can cause issues like root rot and even leaf scales, underwatering can cause symptoms like drying the beautiful fronds of your Areca palm. If you water the soil when it is extremely dried out and compacted, water just passes through the soil without getting absorbed, and the plant dries out even more. To fix this, you need to water the soil in small batches to ensure water is absorbed into the soil.
To prevent overwatering your plant, ensure that you only water it after the first few inches of the topsoil are dry. You can check this by using the finger test. You must also ensure you soak your plant thoroughly while watching the excess water drain through the drainage holes. To reiterate, watering should be reduced during the winter and often during the active growing seasons of spring and summer. Ensure optimal humidity levels and moist soil for your Areca palm.
