By Shannon Kennedy, ANR Educator, UGA Extension Forsyth County
We have finally made it to summer, and after such a difficult year many of us are looking forward to the respite of a good vacation. As you pack for a get-away, remember that your plants will be stuck home alone. Here are a few watering solutions to keep them thriving. The best way to make sure your landscape stays green is to use a timer with your outdoor watering system. This $20 tool will water your plants on a schedule even in your absence. Sprinklers are fine for lawns, but flower beds benefit more from drip irrigation lines. Schedule irrigation for early morning to avoid fungal infections due to long hours of wet foliage.
Laying out a drip irrigation system for flowerpots can be impractical, but grouping container plants together an area that is shady and cool will create a humid microclimate to reduce heat and slow soil drying. The lower light might make your plants a little leggy, but they will recover once you place them back in their original spots. You can go above and beyond by adding a thin layer of mulch to the top of the pots; this will help maintain soil moisture through the rest of the year.
There are plenty of slow-release watering systems that you can use for areas with limited access to water. You have probably seen watering globes before; these are an effective way to ensure a slow release of water, and you can easily create your own. Take an empty bottle and punch a small hole in the cap. Then fill the container with water, put the cap back on, and place the container upside down into the soil near the base of the plant.
A handy piece of watering equipment for a small raised bed is an olla. An olla is essentially a terra cotta vase with a cap in the top. You bury the olla in the soil with the top visible above the soil, fill it with water, and the porous terra cotta clay slowly releases water over time. Ollas can be expensive, but you can make one at home with inexpensive clay pots. Simply plug the drainage hole of a terra cotta pot and bury it to the rim in the soil. Fill the pot with water and put a drip saucer on top as the lid. If you want to double the volume of your homemade olla, glue a second pot upside-down on top of the first, plugged pot using a heavy-duty glue or weatherproof silicone sealer.
For houseplants, consider setting up a water wicking system. Fill a bucket or a gallon jug with water and place it on a stand that is higher than the surrounding potted plants. Then take lengths of fabric cording and submerge them in the bucket. Once the cording is wet, you can take one end out of the bucket, and bury it a couple of inches into the flowerpot. As time goes on water will move down the cording from the bucket to the soil using capillary action.
