The pot has a drainage hole. You added gravel at the bottom for extra drainage. Water runs out when you pour it in.
The plant is still struggling. And the gravel is part of the reason.
A layer of coarse gravel under fine potting mix doesn’t help water move through faster. Water resists crossing from one texture into a very different one — it pauses at the boundary and the soil above holds more moisture than it would without the gravel there at all.
Fill the same pot entirely with potting mix, no gravel, and water actually moves through more evenly and exits the drainage hole sooner. The root zone ends up drier without the layer that was supposed to make it drier.
The fix is simpler than the problem.
Three things that actually improve container drainage:
– Skip the gravel — fill the pot with potting mix all the way to the bottom. A uniform column of the same material drains more consistently than layered materials with different textures.
– Lift the pot — a drainage hole sitting flat on a solid surface can seal under the weight of wet soil. Pot feet, small stones, or any spacer that lifts the base half an inch lets air enter from below, which is what pulls water downward and out.
– Bottom water when soil resists wetting — dry peat-based mixes sometimes repel water, sending it down the inside wall of the pot and out the drain while the root ball stays dry. Setting the pot in a tray of water for twenty minutes lets moisture pull upward through the soil evenly, rewetting the whole root zone from below.
The pot that looks like it’s draining well and the pot that’s actually draining well aren’t always the same pot.