Garden log 1/15/24. So, watering is the bane of my gardening existence — my life is…complex…and as a result, I often forget to water when I should, putting a lot of stress on my plants. I don’t usually completely lose indoor houseplants to lack of watering, but lots and lots of fallen, parched leaves. And sometimes they do just die.
Before going away for Christmas, I figured I would try to make it easier on my house sitters and set up some supplemental watering. I did a little research, and while there are lots of glass balls and such that you can just put in the soil, it seemed like the reviews indicated that the water mostly ran out pretty fast (which was what I remembered from trying them many years ago).
But people seemed to like the ones where you used a wine bottle (or in my case, a big plastic bottle), and a clay insert, so that the water came out slowly. I got a set of six clay pieces, and bottles to go with them, and set them up for my big pots.
I think it’s working pretty well. They all survived the house sitters, and now that I’m back to regular(ish) watering, I think they’re keeping the plants more steady in their water levels, so they’re not as dependent on my fickle attention.
That all went well enough, I wanted to try something for my smaller plants too. I didn’t want big plastic bottles in them (I don’t mind it so much for the big pots, though it’d be nice if it was prettier, oh well), but it seemed like a siphon system might be a good solution.
For that, you get a big glass jug, fill it with water, and then you can insert siphons that connect to clay inserts that go in the soil. I did three pots / jug. Just set it up a few days ago, so I don’t really have a good sense of the results yet, but the reviews were pretty positive, so I’m hopeful. You can vary how quickly the water goes to the plant by varying the height of the siphon.
Better living through (very simple) tech. Less stress all around!
