watering plants whilst away on holiday

exlibris

[quote=WestonDave;12786411

The other option (again in Wilkinsons) is that they do attachments to fit on the top of used drinks bottles (2 litre coke bottles etc) that enable you to spike a full bottle of water into the ground and it will slowly feed out into the pot.

.[/quote]

I got some of these from Kleeeneeze, they were rubbish. The water poured out even before I put them into the pots and the bottles were empty in no time. Nor sure how you can tell the size of the holes and you can't test them in the shop.

miss_corerupted

i got a a fleecy sheet thing and you put 1 end in a bucket of water, plants on a shelf with the rest of sheet under neath and the water leachs up the shhet and keeps the plants damp (not soaking), can't remember where i bougt it maybe a towle would work???

Jack's_mummy

For four days they should mostly be ok with a really good soaking the morning you go. Move things into the shadiest area is possible.

olly300

B&Q - the very large warehouse stores, actually sell bottle drippers that work. However you can only use bottles up to 1.5 litres.

You can also get trays with some sort of fleece material in them from Garden stores like Wyvdale which are useful for smaller plants in pots. You just feel the tray with water.

The best solution is as Jack's mummy suggested. Move plants into the shade and give them a good soaking.

Also how elderly are your elderly neighbours? If they can walk around, you have an outside tap and hose then you can ask them to water some of the plants.

katiel

We went away for a long weekend a few weeks ago, and I would say that while your beds will probably be fine, use every available ploy to protect your pots and hanging baskets! They dry out incredibly quickly. Putting them in the shade is a really good idea. I used the capillary matting and asked various people to water pots whenever they could, and although everything looked pretty thirsty when we got back, it all recovered. What I would NOT recommend is the Watermatic Freeflow drip watering system, which I bought in a sale to use with our water butt. The instructions are so complex and the bits so fiddly that even my techo-capable sons gave up in disgust when trying to put it together. The bottle tops work well for general pot watering purposes, but they all empty out within 10 mins in my experience.

pompeii

I have been using the bottle top water spikes for a year now. I ordered my first lot on line, they do take a bit of trial and error but i now use them most of the time in any big pots that i dont want to be constantly watering. They can take a week or more to empty and i add feed to them.

I have recently bought the B&Q ones and they are OK although I prefer the plastic ones i found them online after doing a search for water spikes you get 6 in a packet for about £7, they only work with fizzy drink bottles not cordial's. Whereas the B&Q ones have an adaptor for differed bottle tops.

Although they both work on 2 litre bottles the pastic is not as strong as smaller bottles and tends to collapse and crack after time.

I have not seen the Wilkinson's ones yet, but i am on the hunt for more.

wen2202

Hanging baskets and pots etc, collect round neighbours work etc for water bottles with sports tops that folks have finished with, fill them with water and spike into dirt, same as wilkos/ kleeneze but without the expense.

Lippycow

I just bought the ones from Wilkinsons and they are useless the water pours out, the bottle had empied in minutes i have just stuffed them with cotton wool to stem the flow...so keeping my fingers crossed:-)

Austin_Allegro

A bit of an old thread but if anyone's still reading, they might find my experiences useful.

I recently went on holiday for a fortnight and decided to try a number of different watering methods with all my pot plants.

Some of the plants are big drinkers and their location (balcony in Hungary) gets up to 40c+ in the summer.

Firstly I moved everything indoors, where the thermal mass is better and temps rarely go above 30c.

I tried various methods: syphonic, capillary, wrapping plants in plastic, wrapping roots in plastic and just leaving in a sinkful of water.

None of the plants died but the method that worked best seemed to be this:

Move the plants out of direct sunlight but near to it.

Take a large vessel (I used 8l bowls from the pound shop, but any big bowl would do). Place it in a big plastic bag. Put your plantpot in the bowl. Fill the bowl with as much water as you can without the plantpot floating. Wrap the plastic around the base of the plant and tie it in place. This will stop the soil drying out but won't stop the plant breathing.

I used this method with tomato plants and they were fine even after a two week heatwave.