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How To Create A Houseplant Watering Tracker In Your Plant Bullet Journal

by Ambassador Team 16 Mar 2023 0 Comments

Hi friends! It’s Emily from Planned and Planted (Instagram and YouTube) here to show you how I made one of my favorite plant care bullet journal spreads - a watering tracker! Nothing hypes me up for spring like buying new houseplants, but it can sometimes be hard to keep track of caring for all of them. The digital plant care tracking apps never work for me, so I knew I wanted to make some spreads in a plant journal. 

A journal is lying open on a dark desk surrounded by stationery supplies. The bullet journal spread shows a watering tracker for plant care using dutch doors.

A dot grid journal lying open on a wood desk surrounded by journaling supplies. The pages are filled with a watering log spread for plant care made with dutch doors and other decorative elements.

Supplies: 

Make sure to use code PLANNEDANDPLANTED10 to save 10% on your Archer and Olive order!

This plant care spread is a little easier to make when you have some clear visuals, so be sure to check out this video tutorial below to help understand some of these instructions better.

How to Make the Watering Tracker

1. Measure, sketch out, and cut the dutch doors and index tabs

A dot grid notebook is lying open on a dark background surrounded by stationery supplies. Emily is cutting out a dutch door spread in the journal

A dot grid notebook is lying open on a dark background surrounded by stationery supplies. Emily is cutting out a dutch door spread in the journal

Measuring and cutting out the little dutch door booklet within the page is definitely the most time-consuming part of creating this spread, but I promise it’s worth it! Take your time measuring and sketching - it will save you more time than having to go back and correct an issue or start over. 

The dimensions for these pages will be different if you’re using a different sized journal, but for mine, I cut below 6 squares down, and across 10 squares from the left and 11 squares from the right. The index tabs are each about 3 squares vertically. I left 1 square row on the bottom. Whatever you are doing, make sure you have space for at least 31 rows so you have space for every date.

While you’re cutting, it’s really helpful to clip the cut pages as you go so you stay in one place. The decorative clips that come in each monthly planning kit (link) are perfect for this!

If you need some more guidance on this step, check out these other helpful blog posts about creating dutch doors  and index tabs in your bullet journal. 

 2. Color in and label the index tabs on the dutch doors

A dot grid journal is lying open on a dark surface. Emily is coloring in the index tabs on the dutch doors with green calliograph brush pens.

A dot grid notebook is open on a dark surface surrounded by journaling supplies. Emily is labeling the index tabs in the dutch door spread with a white acylograph paint pen.

I used 4 different shades of green Calliograph pens  to color in the tabs, both front and back. Then I went in with a white Acrylograph paint pen to label the tabs by the first letter of each month.

3. Add the title "Watering Log" at the top of the spread

A dot grid journal is open on a dark surface. Emily is stamping the title "Watering Log" on to the journal spread with alphabet letter stamps.

I was originally going to letter this in calligraphy with the brush pens, but I decided at the last minute I wanted the look of the stamped letters instead. But lettering titles is one of the most fun aspects of making spreads (in my opinion), so get creative with this part!

4. Add the month onto each page of the dutch doors and add the dates

A dot grid journal is open on a dark surface. Emily is adding the month and dates to a watering tracking spread with dutch doors in her plant bullet journal.

I wrote in the month in the top left corner of each booklet “page”, and then highlighted the row below with a green Calliograph marker. Then I went through and added the numbers for each day of the month. On shorter months, I just add a slash at the end to fill in the empty rows.

5. List the names of all your houseplants on the left side

A dot grid journal with the title "Watering Log" is lying on a dark surface surrounded by stationery supplies. Emily is writing in the names of her houseplants she is tracking on the left side.

Or at least all of the ones whose care you are wanting to track in your journal! For me it was basically all of my potted plants, but not my cuttings, since for those, I just add water when the jar is getting low (all of my cuttings go into clear jars with LECA). 

I also left some blank space on the bottom to add any more plants I buy throughout the year, because we all know it’s going to happen. This plant journal is meant to last several years, so I don’t want to have to re-do things like this watering tracker more than once per year.

6. Erase the sketch marks and add in a key

A dot grid journal is lying open with a dutch door spread and the title Watering Log. Emily is adding a key for bottom watering or regular watering her plants on the side.

Pretty self-explanatory! This is always so satisfying to me because as much as I need to sketch things out before I ink them in, the pencil lines can be distracting at times. Erasing the lines give you a realistic sense of what the spread will look like when it’s finished.

The key I add here is for "bottom watering" and "regular watering." I notice that when I bottom water my plants, they tend to stay hydrated for longer. So I know that if I bottom watered them last, I can wait a bit longer to water them again, but if they were only watered from the top, I'll have to do it again sooner.

7. Decorate with washi tapes, stickers, and/or plant doodles

Emily is adding houseplant stickers from the April Monthly Planning Kit into her watering log spread in her plant journal.
Now for the best part - decorating! I’m not the best illustrator, so the washi tapes, stickers, and stencil in the April 2023 monthly planning kit were PERFECT for adding some decorative elements to this spread. If you like to doodle, some plant doodles would look fantastic on here as well. 

And voila! Now you have a super cute dutch door plant care spread in your journal to track how often you water your plants. You could use a variation of this spread to track all kinds of other plant care related things as well! The printable below includes a variety of things you could track with a spread like this as well

Downloadable print of houseplant care tracking idea for your bullet journal

As always, thanks for reading. If you decide to re-create this spread, be sure to tag @plannedandplanted and @archerandolive.community on Instagram so we can see what you come up with! And let us know in the comments if there’s any other plant care spreads you would like to see in the future. 

Happy planning and planting!

This blog post contains affiliate links.

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