avery_flores17•6d agoTop Commenter

PSA: That free plant app lied to me about my fiddle leaf fig

I had a long talk last week with a woman at the local nursery in Austin, and she pointed out that every leaf on my fiddle leaf fig had brown edges from overwatering. The app I used for 8 months kept telling me the soil moisture was fine, but she showed me how to check with a wooden chopstick instead. Turns out the app was reading the top inch while the roots were sitting in wet mud the whole time. She said she sees three or four people a week bringing in plants that got wrecked by those apps. I pulled the plant out of the pot and the bottom third of the roots were mushy and dead. Has anyone else trusted an app over their own hands and paid for it?

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milarodriguez5d agoMost Upvoted

And honestly I used to be the person defending those apps. I figured technology had to be better than my guesswork, so I trusted it completely for like two years. Then my snake plant started looking rough and the app kept saying the soil was dry, so I watered it more. Got curious one day and stuck my finger way down in the pot, and it was soaking wet. The sensor was just sitting in a dry pocket near the surface, totally useless. That nursery lady is right, nothing beats checking with your own hands or a chopstick. I still use the app for light readings and reminders, but now I treat it like a suggestion, not the gospel.