How do you keep your potted plants from frying when you go away during the summer? I thought I'd share some of my experiments and experiences. Of course the best thing to do is ask someone to water while you're away, but in our case the neighbor who collects our mail and newspapers is the same one who hates amaryllis plants.

Two years ago when we were gone for about six days, I tried putting plants in about an inch of water in the bathtub .



As you can see, that worked pretty well. The water had all been absorbed through the bottoms of the pots when we got back, so I don't know how well this would work for longer than a week. Drawbacks: The tub doesn't hold many plants, and bugs might come into the house with the pots.

Last summer , I tried to do the same thing but on the patio. I put the pots in the shade in as many basin-type containers as I could find and put water in the basins.



That worked OK, too, although a couple of plants did wilt temporarily. Drawback: I didn't have enough plant saucers.

Then I vowed not to travel in July again. I waited until we got back from our trip in May this year to fill the patio with flowers, tomatoes, and seedlings. Who knew my elderly aunt would need to be moved this month and I would decide to go up to Oregon to help?

This time I tried a variety of things. I put the seedlings in a spot that's in the shade most of the time and is watered by sprayers on the drip irrigation system. They were fine. I expected water to collect in the trays to tide them over on days when the automatic watering was off, but it didn't. Drawback: The spray seems to shoot over the plants and not enough falls onto them. I've actually left them there since we got back, but I've supplemented the watering by hand.



I knew I'd find a use for those pink hospital basins if I saved them long enough!

The pots on the lawn under the crab apple tree were fine when we got back, too. They were not too wet and not too dry. I had figured that they would use less water if they were shaded. In the background you can see the other containers lined up at the edge of the patio. All of these plants were watered by the automatic lawn sprinklers. I put basins under some of the ones on the patio to try to catch water to be absorbed through the bottoms of the pots, but I don't think they collected much water.



A bonus was the purple-leaved plant in the foreground looked much healthier than when we left. I realized full sun on the patio had not been the ideal spot for it, so now I have it where it gets partial shade all day.

We hauled the pepper and tomato plants back to the raised beds and laid the drip hoses over them. No, we didn't cover up any plants in the beds since almost none of my cool season seeds even sprouted! The plants we left back there did so well while we were gone that we decided to keep them there at least until we have a freeze. Drawbacks: It was a pain to carry all those heavy containers back there, and we won't always have room in the vegetable beds for patio pots (I hope!).



My biggest worry was the plants in the wooden planters on the patio. The planters are in full sun, they are not easily moved, and water goes right through them. I decided to try leaving full plastic water bottles with slits in the bottom on the soil around the plants. I also put a patio table over one of them (a daisy) to shade it. I tested the bottles the day before to try to get the rate of flow right. When we got back, it looked as if the plants had had a wild party while we were gone.





Of course, what really happened was there had been a wild wind storm in our absence. The bottles were all empty when we returned. The Trader Joe's basil, in the first picture, is OK now. The daisy, though, has dried up and died since we got back. I don't know whether it was lack of water or the blast of sun when I pulled the patio table off.

Tips

If you decide to let your container plants fend for themselves while you leave town for a few days, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Don't try to leave them for more than a week.
• Your plants will need less water if they are out of the sun. It won't hurt sun-loving plants to be in the shade for a few days. You can use patio furniture for shade.
• Try out your arrangement in advance. I started by putting the plants on the lawn under the tree in basins to collect the sprinkler water that fell around them. The first time they went through a sprinkler cycle, the basins filled with water. The plants would have drowned if I'd left them in the basins. You might be surprised at the difference in the amount of water different parts of your yard are getting from your automatic system.
• The water bottle idea is promising. I learned that the bottles just needed a quarter-inch slit in the bottom; if they had more than that, they drained within a few hours. I also learned you can control the rate of flow by tightening the lid (which slows the drainage) or loosening it. You need to experiment in advance—and hope it's not windy while you're gone!
• When putting plants under lawn sprinklers, you have to put them at the far end from the sprinkler head. You want the water drops to fall down onto them; you don't want the pressure of the water coming out of the sprinkler to mow them down.

Other lessons learned

• Wooden planters will never hold enough water. Next year I'll sink the gallon pots into the soil in the container.
• Give plants a break if they're struggling in full sun. Put them in the shade and see if they do better there.

The watering in some of the spots I tried while we were gone worked so well that I've left the plants there to save myself from some of the hand watering. But the best idea is still to avoid leaving town in mid summer!