It will be great if you find a way to use the coffee grounds after you finished your coffee cup. So you are asking do Chinese evergreens like coffee grounds!
In this article, I will answer this question. And will discuss how used coffee grounds can affect your Chinese evergreen.
But before diving deep into the details let me put the answer for our main question as simple as this:
Do Chinese evergreens like coffee grounds? Putting a used coffee grounds in the Chinese evergreens soil will do more harm than good. Because the coffee grounds will increase the soil water retention properties which may lead to root rot. Plus the caffeine content in the used grounds will hinder the Chinese evergreen growth.
Keep reading to know how coffee grounds affect Chinese evergreen.
How coffee grounds affect Chinese evergreen
Used coffee grounds can affect your Chinese evergreen in two ways:
Altering the soil properties
When you put the used coffee grounds in the soil actually you are increasing the organic matter in the soil without balancing out the inorganic matter.
When the organic matter increases in the soil, the soil became more water retentive. This means the soil will retain water for a long period of time without proper drainage.
This is the opposite of what Chinese evergreens need. Chinese evergreen needs soil that retains enough moisture but at the same time drains water well.
An all-purpose potting mix will satisfy those needs. But sure without you adding to it coffee grounds.
Hindering Chinese evergreen growth
According to a scientific study the caffeine that remains in the coffee grounds that made one cup of coffee equals the caffeine of a cup of tea.
This is not a small amount of caffeine. In order to understand how caffeine hinders the Chinese evergreen growth we need to know why coffee plants produces caffeine in the first place.
Coffee plants in their natural habitat produce caffeine in order to eliminate the competition of other plants.
It produces the caffeine in order to kill any plants that try to grow in its space.
Therefore the caffeine content in the used coffee grounds is not healthy for your Chinese evergreen.
Why some people think that Chinese evergreen like coffee grounds
The reason behind the myth that Chinese evergreen like the coffee grounds is the belief that coffee grounds can increase the acidity of the soil.
While it is true that Chinese evergreen like acidic soil. But according to a study conducted on Starbucks used coffee grounds. The tests show the used coffee grounds have a pH of 6.7.
The neutral pH level is 7.0, which means the used coffee grounds are not that acidic. Chinese evergreen like the acidity when it is between 5.6 and 6.0.
Using coffee grounds will not allow you to accomplish that. Instead, you can use rainwater for watering your plant in order to reach such a pH value as rainwater have a pH value of 5.1.
In Conclusion
While you want to do something useful with your used coffee grounds remember that studies showed that those coffee grounds have no positive effect on your Chinese evergreen or any other plant.
Actually it can harm your plant by the caffeine stress and it can increases the soil water retention properties which may lead to root rot.
If you want to recycle your coffee grounds you can put them in the compost pin.
If the coffee grounds composted with your other materials it can be a good source of nutrients for your plant. But otherwise don’t use it for your plant directly.