How I Finally Stopped Killing Plants by Tracking My Watering

I used to think I could just remember.

Spoiler: I could not just remember.

My system (if you can call it that) was to water plants when they "looked thirsty." The problem? By the time most plants look thirsty, they've been struggling for days. And some plants, like succulents, look perfectly fine until they're rotting from the inside.

After killing a beautiful rubber plant that I swore I was taking good care of, I decided to actually track what I was doing. I've tried pretty much every method out there, and I want to share what worked, what didn't, and what I wish I'd known from the start.

The real problem with "I'll just remember"

Here's what happens when you don't track:

You see your pothos looking a bit droopy. Did you water it recently? You think so, but you're not sure. It was either Tuesday or maybe last Friday. So you give it "just a little water" to be safe.

Except you did water it on Tuesday. Now it's overwatered. A week later, leaves start yellowing and you have no idea why.

This exact scenario played out with at least five of my plants before I finally got serious about tracking.

What I tried (and what actually works)

The sticky note phase

My first attempt was sticky notes on each pot. "Watered 1/5" written in sharpie.

This lasted about two weeks.

The notes got wet and fell off. I forgot to update them. They looked ugly. And when I did remember to write on them, I'd already forgotten what day it was.

The spreadsheet experiment

Because I'm the kind of person who thinks spreadsheets solve everything, I made a Google Sheet. Plants listed down the left side, dates across the top, checkmarks when I watered.

It was beautiful. Color-coded. I was proud.

I used it for maybe three weeks. The problem was friction. I'd water my plants, then have to go find my laptop or phone, open Google Sheets, find the right tab, scroll to today's date, and mark it. By the time I sat down at my computer, I'd forgotten which plants I'd actually watered.

For some people, spreadsheets work great. I know someone who tracks everything about her 80+ plants in a massive Excel file. But she also loves spreadsheets the way some people love crossword puzzles. For me, it was too much work.

The "watering day" routine

Then I tried having a designated watering day. Every Sunday morning, I'd water all my plants.

This is actually not a terrible approach for beginners with just a few plants. It builds a habit. You don't have to think.

But it fell apart as my collection grew. My calathea wanted water every 4-5 days. My snake plant wanted it every 3 weeks. Watering everything on Sunday meant some plants were drowning while others were parched.

I ended up with a confusing mental list of exceptions. "Sunday is watering day, except the calathea which is also Wednesday, and skip the succulents every other week, and the fern actually needs it twice a week, and..."

Yeah. That didn't last.

The app solution

I was skeptical of plant apps at first. Seemed like overkill for something people have been doing for centuries without smartphones.

But here's the thing: people in centuries past didn't have 23 different houseplants from 15 different climate zones sitting in their living room. Modern plant collecting is kind of insane when you think about it. A desert cactus next to a tropical fern next to a Mediterranean olive tree. No wonder we need help keeping track.

I tried a few apps and landed on Beflore. What I like about it is that it doesn't try to tell me when to water (those generic schedules never match my actual conditions). Instead, it just tracks what I actually do, and over time I can see patterns.

The real game-changer was the widget. I water a plant, tap the widget on my home screen, done. Two seconds. No opening an app, no logging into anything. Just tap and move on.

After a few weeks, I had actual data. I could see that my monstera was getting watered every 6-7 days and doing great. My peace lily was getting watered every 4 days and also doing great. My string of pearls was getting watered every 5 days and... wait, that seems too often for a succulent.

It was. I pulled back to every 10-12 days, and the plant recovered. I would never have caught that without seeing the pattern.

What I track now (and what I don't)

I started by tracking just watering. That's it. Every time I watered a plant, I logged it.

After that became automatic (maybe two weeks), I added fertilizing. Then I started taking occasional photos, especially when something looked different.

I don't track everything. Some apps want you to log humidity levels, light meter readings, temperature, soil moisture. That's way too much for me. I'd never keep up with it.

Watering, fertilizing, and the occasional note when something seems off. That's my system. It's simple enough that I actually do it.

The unexpected benefit

The best part of tracking isn't the reminders or the schedules. It's what happens when something goes wrong.

Last month, my fiddle leaf fig started dropping leaves. Normally I'd panic and start googling "fiddle leaf fig dropping leaves" and get 47 different possible causes.

Instead, I looked at my timeline. Two weeks before the leaf drop started, I'd moved the plant to a different spot. A week before, I'd watered it twice in three days (unusual for me).

That's probably it. The move stressed it, and I overcompensated with water. Knowing the cause meant I could fix it: leave the plant alone, let the soil dry out, be patient.

Without the tracking, I'd have been guessing.

My advice if you're just starting

Keep it stupid simple.

Pick one method of tracking. Just one. Don't combine a spreadsheet with sticky notes with a phone reminder. Pick the thing most likely to become a habit and stick with it for a month.

If you have more than a handful of plants, an app is probably the easiest option. The good ones (like Beflore) are free to start and take seconds to use. If you hate apps, a paper calendar works fine as long as you actually write in it.

The method matters less than consistency. A crappy tracking system you use every day beats a perfect system you abandon after a week.

And start with just watering. Don't try to track watering, fertilizing, repotting, pruning, humidity, and light levels all at once. You'll burn out. Get watering tracking down first, then add more if you want.

One year later

My plant survival rate has gone from "concerning" to "pretty good." I haven't lost a plant to overwatering in months (underwatering got one, but that was vacation-related, not tracking-related).

More importantly, I actually understand my plants now. I know that my pothos likes more water in summer. I know my snake plant basically wants to be ignored. I know my calathea is a drama queen who needs attention every few days.

None of that came from reading care guides. It came from paying attention to what I was actually doing and what worked.

That's the real value of tracking. Not the reminders. The learning.

If you want to try the app approach, Beflore is free to download. But honestly, even a notebook works if you'll actually use it. The best system is the one you stick with.