How to Keep Your Container Plants Alive When You Go on Vacation

Summertime vacations are the best, but they have a downside for avid container gardeners like myself. How do I keep my potted plants happy and hydrated under the summer sun in my absence?

I’m about to depart for my annual sojourn in Italy with my husband and his family. While I’m deeply grateful to be spending four languorous weeks there, it is a long time to be away from my garden. Here are my strategies for avoiding too many plant funerals when I come home.

Get a plant-sitter and prioritize watering

If you’re leaving town for more than just a week or so like I am, and you don’t have a fancy automated drip irrigation system, you need a plant-sitter. There are DIY methods to drip-irrigate pots that I’ll discuss below, but they’ll only last a week at most. Find someone you trust to keep your plants alive while you’re gone. 

Last year before our trip, I posted a sign in my building asking if anyone would be willing to plant-sit, offering payment in both money and homegrown tomatoes. My sweet neighbor Vera generously volunteered and refused to accept any compensation (plus my tomatoes sucked). She’s doing it again this year. Vera’s a gem.

But once you’ve found your Vera, make it easy for them. We gardeners tend to our plants with a lot of love. We deadhead, prune, fertilize, and fuss. If you’re paying someone and they’re a gardener too, then yes, they might be willing to care for your plant babies as if they were their own. But you can’t ask for that level of commitment from someone who is kindly doing it for free.

So, prioritize the number one thing your plants need to stay alive: water. Keeping your plants watered should be your plant sitter’s only mandate. Everything else is a nice-to-have.

Optimize water retention

I’ll be employing a few strategies to minimize the number and length of Vera’s visits while maximizing the chances of my plants surviving.

Smaller pots dry out faster, so I’ll plant up whatever needs it, like young seedlings and rootbound herbs.

I’ll rearrange my pots so they’re clustered together and easy to reach. This will make for quicker work for Vera, but also create a nice little microclimate for them that will be cooler and slower to dry out. I’m placing most of my houseplants outside too so they’re all in one place.

Water evaporates especially fast from porous terracotta pots. If you’re a stubborn terracotta lover like me and you have the chance to re-pot anything, line your planters with a plastic bag to retain water longer. Just be sure to cut holes in the bottom of the bag for drainage.

Lastly, I’ll mulch my pots with compost, which will both help retain water and slowly release nutrients, feeding two birds with one scone. You could also mulch with straw or woodchips to keep that water sealed in.

DIY irrigation solutions

As I alluded to above, DIY irrigation options still need to be replenished every few days. If you’re going to use them during an extended vacation, the goal should be to reduce the number of times your plant-sitter needs to visit, rather than replace her altogether.

However, they are worth exploring because the heat of the summer can quickly evaporate water from the topsoil of your planters, leaving your plants dry at the roots. These methods all aim to water plants deeply and consistently, delivering water where it’s most needed without wasting a drop.

This is my first time trying any of these methods, so I’ve opted for a mix to see what works best. As always, the internet has a zillion ideas to choose from, but they all seem to be variations on three main themes:

1. Wicking. This method uses gravity and string, rope, or strips of cloth to slowly deliver water from a container, like a bowl or pot, to your plants. I followed these directions to keep my heucheras and the houseplants I moved outside from drying out.

2. Buried terracotta vessel. Also known as an olla, this ancient method takes advantage of terracotta’s porosity. Water slowly seeps from the vessel into the surrounding soil. I buried small terracotta pots in my olive and bay tree planters, which had sufficient room. I stopped up the holes with some blue tape and covered them with clay saucers.

3. Upside-down bottle. There are several ways to go about this method, but essentially you stick a bottle into your planters upside-down with a system to release the water slowly into the soil. This can be a terracotta cone or a cap with tiny holes punched in it. I followed “method 1” in these instructions for my fig. 

If any of these methods work, I might keep them installed permanently to save water. We’ll see!

Let go

Again, as lovely as your plant-sitter may be, they might not have the time and wherewithal to care for your plants just like you would. Take care of as much feeding, pruning, tying in, etc. as you can before you leave. Make watering your plant-sitter’s main job and make it as easy for them as possible. Then, take a deep breath and let it go.

It’s a trade-off: I get to run off to Italy for a month, but that means I might lose a plant or two. It’s interesting to come back and see what suffered and what thrived. You might even be pleasantly surprised. Several years ago, another plant-sitting neighbor brought my ailing maidenhair fern back to life while I was away! 

Ciao for now

Along with a break from gardening, I’m also taking a break from blogging during the month of July. I’ll be back at some point in August once my jet-lag and post-Italy malaise have worn off. 

To those of you who are not abandoning your gardens, enjoy this exuberant high summer moment! What an exciting time for blooms, pollinators, fruits, and vegetables. I am sorry to miss it on my balcony. But I know I’ll encounter lots of plantspiration on my travels, and I look forward to sharing it with you upon my return.

Happy summer / buon’estate <3