This week is houseplant week, and we wanted to share one of our ongoing studies with you! The potting felt study looks at how effective waste hair could be as potting felt, and we’re using GSC collected hair that we felted into a hair mat.
By putting hair felt at the bottom of the plant pots, we’re looking at its ability to retain water, and by using hair as a top layer above the soil, we’re also judging its water retention but also its ability to deter pests. We have 4 groups of plants that each have a different balance of hair mats: at the top, at the bottom, at both and at neither. This way, we can see the impacts of each option, and compare them to a control group with no waste hair.
Our Hypothesis: Potting felt improves water retention and improves the visible quality of potted plants. Hair is good for water absorption and so plants will require less water or watering less often. Hair is high in nitrogen and this is slowly released to the plant when it is in the soil. Hair as a top layer can deter pests. Hair can help to give soil a sturdy matrix which may be useful for supporting roots.
Plus, hair is rich in nitrogen which makes it ideal for composting and treating plants with it. Hair is like a long-lasting nitrogen supplement for your favourite house plants!
If you’d like to give your houseplants a little boost, or help to repeat our experiment (we used 16 baby monstera plants, pots and labels), here’s how you can get involved:
Step by Step:
- Collect a small amount of waste hair (either your own, or skim the top of the GSC box)
- Put the hair at the base of your plant pot and repot the plant on top
- Water as usual, testing the dampness of the soil and adjusting based on the amount retained by hair
- Over time, nitrogen will be released by the hair and give your plants a little growing boost
Our Top Tips:
- The best plants to use for this experiment are ones that are Nitrogen loving, as this is what the hair is giving back to the soil. Plus, it’s easy to see when plants are deficient in Nitrogen, as they lose the deep green colour in their leaves.
- If possible, try to avoid feeding the plants as this negates the need for hair. It could change the results of the study, and if you’re using hair as a boost then you can save your plant food!
- If your plants become infested by bugs, don’t panic! We recommend treating them ASAP to avoid longer term leaf-damage or losing your plant. In our experiment, the hair-less plants succumbed to the bugs first, and lost the most leaves during the infestation.
- We don’t recommend using dyed hair for houseplants, or any gardening that grows edible food due to the chemicals potentially being released over time.
Bonus points for sharing our step-by-step with your clients, so they can use their own waste hair on their houseplants and garden!
Want to take it one step further?
We’d love your help to get some data and replicate our version of the study, that has been undertaken by our Head of R&D Stephanie and replicated by Ryan Crawford, one of our amazing GSC Green Libertines and gardening enthusiast.
Materials Needed:
- Seedlings, approximately the same size and condition
- Plant pots (We used recycled plastic Ocean Plastic Pots)
- Labels (paper tape and marker)
- Pre-measured watering vessel (shot glass or similar)
- Well-lit room and space for plants in indirect sunlight
- Observation chart
Method:
- 16 nearly identical monstera deliciosa seedlings will be used for this study.
- Each will be labelled with a letter of the alphabet which will indicate the presence or absence of potting felt, including its position (example table below).
- Each plant will be given the exact same amount of water by volume and frequency and observations of each plant will be recorded. Observations will include the size of the largest leaf (width, cm), the number of green leaves, the number of yellow leaves, the number of new leaves, the number of newly dead leaves and the presence of roots at the bottom of the pot. Plants will be photographed regularly for visual comparisons over time.
- The seedlings will receive nearly the same amount of indirect sunlight but their position relative to the window and to each other may impact growth. To help prevent position from becoming an extraneous variable, each plant will be rotated each week. A will take the place of B, B the place of C, C the place of D, and so on. After 16 weeks, the plants should be back in their approximate starting positions.
Table 1: Plant labels based on presence and position of potting felt
|
Plants |
Felt TOP |
Felt BOTTOM |
NO Felt |
|
A |
X |
X |
|
|
B |
X |
X |
|
|
C |
X |
X |
|
|
D |
X |
X |
|
|
E |
X |
||
|
F |
X |
||
|
G |
X |
||
|
H |
X |
||
|
I |
X |
||
|
J |
X |
||
|
K |
X |
||
|
L |
X |
||
|
M |
X |
||
|
N |
X |
||
|
O |
X |
||
|
P |
X |
Written by Jess Rigg & Stephanie Hodgson