Plant care help needed

I’m not particularly green fingered and have a habit of killing plants (accidentally). However, all my house plants are doing well now.

I have a fairly high but covered balcony and replaced two topiaries with Bay shrubs after advice from my local gardening centre. I needed something hardy essentially.

I also bought two soleirolia soleirolii for indoors. I’ve owned done before as I love the look for decoration but they dried up and died within 2 weeks! I’d say a general query I have is how often to water plants as I’m always scared I’m either over or under watering. My questions are as follows:

1) for the soleirolia soleirolii ive been told to water from below. So I rest the pots in the sink for 20 mins or so. Is this ok and how often should I be doing this? Do I genuinely need to do daily? Or a few times a week? Should I also be misting the plant and how often? This plant probably isn’t good for me as it requires too much care!

2) for the Bay, I’ve added gel moisture pellets as I know I cannot water daily as suggested. However, how often should I be watering considering the size (as below). Every week minimum? And I don’t have a clue what a watering consists of. How many litres should I be using as I’m scared I’m drowning plants with a big water.

3) the care instructions for the bay say it’s ok to stay outdoors in winter but to reduce watering to every 6 weeks as it goes into hibernation. Will it be ok in a cold winter? I’m conscious the balcony can get quite windy