You can always use the magnet button to bring the ball down. Besides that there is a micro gravity so even without the magnet the ball will slowly come down.
I can't water the plant. There are buckets everywhere, why can't I just grab one? Why do I have to hunt down the 1 item that lets me advance for something this mundane?
Well, it's kinda a point of these games. In this case, the very mundane watering can is, a little ironically, hidden in a chest locked with a code. Fill it up at the central fountain.
You can always use the magnet button to bring the ball down. Besides that there is a micro gravity so even without the magnet the ball will slowly come down.