Watering plants through a Dhaka summer

A watering calendar copied from a temperate blog will fail in Bangladesh. Rooftop pots dry from wind as much as from sun. Indoor pots in air-conditioned rooms dry slowly and rot if you water on a fixed weekday.

Check the mix, not the date. Lift a pot. If it is light and the top two centimetres are dry, water thoroughly until it leaves the drainage hole. Empty the saucer. Ferns and peace lilies want a shorter gap than snake plants and ZZ plants.

In a heatwave, water in the early morning. Midday watering on a rooftop can scald foliage and still miss the root ball. After a storm, do not add water because the sky looked dramatic — check whether the pot is already saturated.