Tips for A Temporary Irrigation System

Do you go away often and worry about how your potted plants will survive?

Do you buy plants on the spur of the moment before you actually have a designated home for them?

HERE ARE A FEW TIPS ON HOW TO KEEP YOUR POTTED PLANTS ALIVE WHILST YOU ARE AWAY.

Group all plants that need watering together- ideally in a location where they can be on a similar level if possible, close to a tap, with protection from western sun and wind.

Put saucers under each of your potted plants if you are worried about them drying out. I would only do this in the Summer months if I knew the temperatures were going to be high whilst we were away. Some species won’t need the saucer.

Connect an automatic battery operated timer to a tap. Then connect to the poly pipe. We have used 19mm poly pipe. This needs to be long enough to run the length of the group of your potted plants.

Push an adjustable dripper into each pot and connect these back to the poly pipe with spaghetti tube.

Program timer to come on. For the 2 weeks in February we had the timer coming on every second day for 15 mins. This proved to be a good frequency. It will vary between your location, pot sizes and plant species.

You can reuse this set up every time you go away.

If you want to continue to use the irrigation system but you have too many drippers you can close off the heads on the drippers or remove them from the pipe and plug up the holes.

Having this type of set up in your garden can also be useful if you regularly buy plants before you know where you want to plant them or the garden beds are not ready. It will be like a little growing nursery set up for your garden.