Distilled water, or purified water, can be made by boiling tap water away and condensing the vapour into a separate vessel. Using this water for your plants may have several benefits compared to tap water since it is free of impurities. Read on for more information about why you should use distilled water for plants in your home.

What Is Distilled Water?

Distillation is a form of purification that is achieved through evaporation and condensation. Water evaporates and is then collected in a separate vessel where it is free from contamination with chemicals, minerals, bacteria, and viruses. While you can distil water on your own, it is often easiest to purchase distilled water for plants. Otherwise, you might need to invest in equipment to evaporate and condense water vapour, which offers little benefit relative to the amount of work you put in.

What Does Tap Water Contain?

You might be wondering what is in tap water that people would go to such lengths to remove. Our everyday drinking water undoubtedly contains chemicals like fluoride, chlorine (or chloramine), and many others. While these are harmless for humans (and actually make the water safer), plants often don’t respond well to them. On top of the chemicals that are added to drinking water, high levels of minerals and metals can also be problematic for plants. An excellent example of this is hard water. Hard water is has a high concentration of heavy metals or minerals. This can cause issues for houseplants. For example, Venus flytraps cannot tolerate hard water. The solution to this issue is to use distilled water to care for your houseplants.

Impurities are less of an issue for outdoor plants since any water will be diluted by the rain. On the other hand, houseplants have to subside solely on the water you provide them with, so the chemicals in the water can build up over time. As such, many people opt for distilled water when caring for their houseplants to protect them from the chemicals in tap water.

Does Distilled Water Impact Plant Growth?

The majority of people use tap water for their plants and rarely report issues. Most plants can tolerate impurities in the water and will not exhibit signs of distress from tap water alone. However, some plants cannot survive if water from the faucet is used.

Additionally, some side-by-side growth experiments have investigated the difference between distilled water and tap water. These comparisons suggested that plants given distilled water tend to grow faster and stronger than those given tap water.

While you might see faster growth and higher leaf production from distilled water, you must also remember that it doesn’t add any nutrients to the soil. As such, if you decide to use distilled water for your houseplants, you must also take care to fertilize the soil.

Conclusion

In summary, distilled water is worth considering for your houseplants. Some things in tap water can be harmful to plants, and they may grow better if you use purified water. However, you must remember this will not add any nutrients to the soil, so fertilization is essential.

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