Science becomes your gardener

Articles Required: A potted plant, a pot full of water, a piece of cotton string.

Many people are fond of indoor plants. But they hesitate to go in for them only because of the extra care they call for. For instance, who would look after them when the whole family is away on a vaca­tion? At some places the neigh­bours might take care of them, but you don't always have such caring neighbours. Then what to do? Shouldn't one have indoor plants only because one likes to enjoy some vacation. Now go wherever you want to without worrying for your plants. In your absence, the science will take over the task of watering your plants. Well, get to know here how it's done.

Place your water container at some high place and put your potted plant somewhere near it, at the bot­tom, as shown in the figure here. Now take your cotton string and insert its one end in pot's soil and dip the other in the container. As you do it, the water will first start moving up through the string and then starts going down alongwith the string to the pot. In scientific terminology this phenomenon is called 'Capillary attraction'. As long as the water remains in the container it will keep on wetting the string and thus flowing out of it to water the plant. So the size of the water container should correspond to the time of your absence and the number of plants to be watered. Yes, remember one important thing: for each plant there should be a different string although the water container can remain the same.

Matchstick with sweet-tooth !

Articles Required: Amatchstick, a tub of water, sugar cube or sugar.

First of all, fill your tub with water. When the water surface is abso­lutely quiet and no bubbles are seen, just put a matchstick at the centre of the water surface. Now hang a sugar cube with thread at a distance of about three-four centi­meters from the matchstick in such a manner that half of it remains sub­merged in the water. Yes, one thing: while handling these things take care not to create any distur­bance in the water.

If you can't get a sugar cube, don't worry, you can just make a small pocket of sugar and hang it instead of the cube. After sometime you'll notice that the matchstick starts sliding towards the sugar cube, as if attracted by sweet. But do you know what is the actual reason behind it?

The sugar dissolves in water and makes a sweet solution. Being heavier than plain water, this sweet solution starts settling down. In this condition the water rushes from all directions to fill the gap. And as a result the matchstick is dragged along.