How to Water Gardens During Holiday?

Even though gardeners have a strong bond with their garden, there are occasions when it is necessary to spend time away from home – visiting other people’s gardens is always a good excuse for me to travel.

Summer is one of those times when the cottage, camp, road or even the airport beckons many of us to leave. Leaving a garden is not as simple as leaving the pet goldfish in the care of a neighbor. Finding a gardening friend to take the responsibility of watering your treasured bonsai twice a day may be almost impossible.

Hopefully you've planted mostly drought tolerant plants and you've mulched and got your garden down to needing only 1 watering per week. Even so, hot temperatures, spotty showers and unforeseen problems can set you up for disappointment, when you come home. You can always pray for rain, but here are some more practical ideas for watering your plants while you are on vacation. If you have some to add, please share.

For outdoor plants, do a thorough garden clean-up a week before you leave. This is similar to cleaning the house just before leaving so that it will be nice and tidy upon your return. The last thing that you want to do when you return from a holiday is clean the house (or see your roses laden with spent flowers). The clean-up will also be an opportunity to note any special care instructions. The garden will not stay tidy, but removing any weeds and deadheading spent flowers before you leave will give your garden a well cared for appearance while you are away. Just before leaving the garden, water it thoroughly. Do this even if it is already moist. This might be the last water the garden receives until you return. The plants that will need the most water are shallow rooted plants such as annuals, perennials, shrubs, and newly planted trees. If the lawn has not been receiving extra irrigation, don’t worry about it if you are going away for a week or two. If no natural rain occurs during this time, the lawn will just go dormant. When irrigation or natural rain returns (if withing reason) it will come out of dormancy and “green up” again. Lawns that have had regular, consistent forms of irrigation are more likely to suffer problems if this is not continued. A timer for a sprinkler hose will offer some solution to this situation.

1. Water Well and Mulch

Any mulches will conserve moisture during a vacation drought. Materials can range from purchased bark or wood chips to grass clippings or newspapers. The purpose of the mulch is to stop the sun from evaporating precious moisture. The application of mulch is money and time well spent. If you are only going to be gone a week or less, you may be able to get away with a good soaking and a layer of mulch. Mulched plants lose 25% less water than unmulched plants. Of couse, it all depends on the weather. Some plants may wilt or become stressed, but you probably won't lose any.

If you already have a few inches of mulch on the garden bed, you probably don't need to add more. You don't want the mulch to be so deep that the crown of the plant is buried. In this case, just be sure that the soil beneath the mulch is wet several inches below the surface. Push your shovel through and check in several spots.

If you want to add more mulch, you don't need to re-mulch the entire bed. Mulching around the plant roots will suffice.

2. Install Automatic Watering Kit

Automatic Drip irrigation kit may sound like an impossible task, but the process is quite simple and you can purchase inexpensive kits that basically pop together. This is better done at the start of the growing season.

With drip irrigation, you can put a timer on your spigot and never have to think about when to water your garden. Higher end timers can even sense how much rain you've gotten and adjust accordingly.

Reference product: Automatic drip watering kit with controller HT1116 - can automatically irrigate up to 10 potted plants!

3. Use Bottle End Drippers: Cost-saving solution!

You can create your own self-watering system with old plastic beverage jugs and bottles. Poke the tiniest pin hole in the lower side of the jug. Place the jug in the soil next to your plant, a couple of inches below the soil surface. Water the garden well, then fill the jug with water, just before you leave, and it will slowly drip additional water to the roots.

Obviously you will need several jugs, to water an entire garden. But you can put one jug in between four plants and concentrate on the plants that need constant moisture. You can also use this method for containers.
Suggested product for this solution: Bottle end spike dripper. Just use a old plastic beverage bottle with it. 

Automatic sensor cone, used along with anything that can load water, that's all!

The above two solutions are TOTALLY cheap, just resolve within USD1 per kit!!
 

4. Put a Water Timer on Irrigation sprinker

I mentioned using a timer to turn a drip irrigation system on and off, but you don't have to get that high tech. The water timer option works just as well with a regular garden sprinkler. You may need a couple of sprinklers and connector hoses, if your garden is spread out.

If you tend to change the layout of your garden from year to year, sprinklers and soaker hoses can be a better option, because they are easier to move around than a drip irrigation system would be. Drip irrigation is designed to target each individual plant, but sprinklers and soaker hoses will water wide areas.

Huntop manufacture and offers a wide range of automatic watering kits and watering controllers, welcome to take a glance!

Hot selling: ALDI approved 71pcs watering kit!