Plant Pots Without Drainage

A cachepot is a decorative pot without a drainage hole. It holds a grower pot — the grower pot has the soil, the plant, and the drainage hole. The cachepot holds the grower pot and makes it look intentional. It's a design decision, not a horticultural one. The French named it specifically, which tells you something about the priorities involved.

Decorative pots without drainage holes are used as cachepots, as vessels for dried or artificial arrangements, as storage containers for small objects, as planters for air plants that do not require drainage, or as decorative elements in their own right without a plant inside them at all. The absence of a drainage hole is a design choice, not a manufacturing oversight. Every Chive cachepot was made without a drainage hole on purpose, by people who understood what they were making and why.

A ceramic cachepot works as a teacher gift because you only need to know the recipient lives somewhere with at least one surface. It arrives in ceramic with a glaze that won't fade and will look the same in ten years. No explanation required. No assembly either.

A cachepot has no drainage hole. A regular plant pot has a drainage hole. The cachepot is designed to hold another pot inside it. The regular plant pot is designed to hold soil and a plant directly. Both are useful. They are useful for different things. The confusion arises when someone puts soil and a plant directly into a cachepot without a liner, which produces the same outcome as putting soil and a plant into any pot without drainage: root rot, eventually.

Air plants — tillandsia — do not require drainage because they absorb water through their leaves rather than their roots, and their roots are primarily for anchoring rather than water uptake. Beyond air plants, putting soil directly into a pot without drainage is not recommended for any plant that requires regular watering. The solution is the liner system: grower pot inside, cachepot outside, water drains through the grower pot into the cachepot base, you empty the cachepot base after watering.

Air plants do well in cachepots because they absorb water through their leaves and don't need drainage at all. Certain orchids work in a liner system inside a cachepot — bark medium drains fast and the cachepot catches the excess. Beyond that, soil directly into a pot without drainage is not a good idea for any plant that needs regular watering.

Air plants do well in cachepots because they absorb water through their leaves and don't need drainage at all. Certain orchids work in a liner system inside a cachepot — bark medium drains fast and the cachepot catches the excess. Beyond that, soil directly into a pot without drainage is not a good idea for any plant that needs regular watering.

The best decorative plant pots are made from ceramic, have a glaze that does not fade, and are designed with enough specificity that they look considered rather than generic. Chive decorative pots are ceramic, available in glazes chosen with intention, and sized to fit standard grower pot diameters correctly.

Most people would tell you what a cachepot is if asked at a dinner party, because it is a reasonable question and the answer is not complicated. Some people would change the subject, which is also a valid approach, particularly if the dinner party is going well and a detour into horticultural vessel terminology seems like a risk. Chive takes no position on the dinner party strategy. Chive makes the cachepot. What you say about it in social situations is your own business.