Both outdoor and indoor plants are integral part of our lives. We have some indoor plants. They help us in many ways like giving positivity by lowering stress, improving productivity and generating the feel-good factor. They take part in home decoration too.

We take care of them by watering regularly, although not daily, because some indoor plants need water once a week. But it gets difficult to water when we go out for vacation/away from home. We saw some indoor plants with dry leaves while visiting our friend’s house after their holidays, and the plants are almost on the verge of dying. So we prepared our plants before our vacation started to keep them hydrated. It is very simple and can be easily done with minimal effort and use of household items.

Step:1

Keep empty cold drink bottles. You can use other containers depending upon the size of the plants and number of days away from home. So we use four to five bottles for our plants while away for three weeks and hope it will be enough. Also, we select closed bottles instead of open containers to keep water for more days by minimizing the evaporation from the container. For the experiment, we used an open container, and it lasted for four days.

Step:2

Make a small hole near the bottle cap so that we can fill it with the maximum amount of water inside the bottle and can use it for watering. We used scissors and heated up the front part of it to make holes in the bottle if we didn’t have a proper drilling machine/nails. Also, you can do multiple holes in the same bottle to water multiple plants. It all depends on the requirements. And then insert cotton thread through that hole.

Step:3

Fill plant roots with granular brown stones, which help to keep them moisturised. So plants need less water. You can find it at a nearby shop (e.g., Lidl, etc.) or nursery. You can search for granular brown stones as “hydroton clay pebbles”. It is good to have, but not mandatory.

Step:4

Keep the water bottles at a higher place and vessels with plants at a lower height than the bottle so that water can flow easily. And make sure the cotton thread reaches the bottom part of the water bottle. Do this experiment one week prior to your vacation to check if any changes are required to this whole setup.

Of course it is not rocket science, but we forget to do these small things when it is required. There are many other ways to do this, but we found this process most convenient and easy to do in a short time. Take care of your plants and share your story.

After 20 days:

Water levels in bottles are less compared to before. Plants are in good state with proper hydration as shown in below pics. It means the experiment worked for watering plants while away.

But there is always room for some improvement. We need to be careful about the selection of thread, as thicker thread will transfer more water than the required amount. And that is not good for sapling or small plants. So use thinner cotton thread instead of thicker one.

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