When no one can plant-sit for the holidays

Holidays are good for people, but not for plants. Unless you have a friendly neighbor who can plant-sit for you, you will have to devise ways of keeping your indoor plants watered while you are away.

Most plants will survive without watering for a few days, but if you are leaving them for more than a long weekend, special arrangements will have to be made.

If you can’t arrange for a neighbor to pop in every couple of days to water your houseplants, take the following precautions:

• If it’s summer, stand as many as possible outdoors. Choose a shady, sheltered position, and plunge the pots to keep them cool and to conserve moisture. Provided that they are watered well before you leave, most plants will survive a week like this, even without rain.

• Move those that are too delicate to go outdoors into a few large groups in a cool position out of direct sunlight.

• Stand as many as possible on trays of gravel, watered to just below the level of the pot bases. Although this will not moisten the compost, the humid air will help to keep the plants in good condition.

• Ensure that all of the most vulnerable plants have some kind of watering system.

Proprietary Watering Devices

Many kinds of watering devices can be bought, and new ones – usually variations on an old theme – appear each year. Most work on one of the following principles:

Porous reservoirs are pushed into the compost and filled with water. The water slowly seeps through the porous walls over a period of a few days to a week. These are useful for one or two pots for a short period of time, but as you need one for each pot and the reservoir is small, their use is limited.

Ceramic mushrooms work on a similar principle, but the top is sealed and there is a connecting tube for insertion into a large reservoir of water (such as a bucket). As the water seeps through the porous shaft, the pressure in the sealed unit drops and fresh water is drawn from the reservoir. This simple but effective device will keep a plant happy for a couple of weeks, but again, you need one for each pot!

Wicks are sold for insertion in the base of the pot, which is then stood above a reservoir of water. This is a god method if you only have a handful of plants, otherwise too tricky to set up.

Drip feeds, sold for greenhouse and garden use, are a good solution. They can be expensive, and if you use a portable bag reservoir they are not very elegant for the home. – but that will not matter while you are away.

Improvising

Two reliable systems use the kitchen sink or bath and capillary matting, which is available at garden centers and home improvement stores.

For the sink, cut a length of matting that fits the draining area and is long enough to dip into the basin part. Fill this with water as a reservoir, or leave the plug out but let the tap drip into the mat to keep it moist. If you leave the tap dripping, have a trial run beforehand to make sure that it keeps the mat moist without wasting water.

If you want to leave water in the bath, place the mat and plants on a plank of wood supported on bricks, to leave space for the water.

Bear in mind that compost in clay pots with broken pots over the drainage holes will not benefit from the capillary action efficiently (though you could still inset small wicks through the holes). The system works best for houseplants kept in plastic pots, with nothing placed over the drainage holes.

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From The Gardener’s Handbook, available at National Book Store.