In the meantime, I thought I'd drop into my shamefully neglected blogspace and say 'hello!' with a couple of helpful little hints for you if you might be off somewhere yourself soon.
I have a lot of house plants, some of which can go with only being watered once a week, while others are more particular and droop after just a few days without water. So, worried that I'd come home to a bunch of pots full of kindling after being gone for a week, I decided to try out a self-watering trick I'd seen in a magazine. I gathered up the plants that I thought would miss me most, plus two heavy-duty rubber bin lids and some plastic plates. The plates went in the upturned lids, the plants went on the plates, then I watered each plant thoroughly and filled the bin lids with a couple of inches of water. Then I took a few garbage bags and tore open one side to create tents over the plants. Overlapping the bags and tucking the edges under the bin lids made like a little green house or terrarium. And all my plants did great! One plant was kind of droopy when I got home because I hadn't done a good enough job of overlapping the garbage bags and there was a big gap above it where apparently the moisture had excaped. But it survived and I was impressed that this little self-watering method had worked so well! If you try this, though, I'd suggest using something like a plastic drop-cloth for your tenting. The garbage bags worked, but it would've been nice to have just one giant piece of plastic covering everything.
The other method is for individual plants and I'm finding that it works really, really well, too! This little sprig of ivy has been on a shelf in our guest room since I put it together for my Mom's visit back in May. I hadn't been going in there much since, so the poor little thing was being neglected and I'd find it sorely in need of water. (You may notice it's actually smaller than in the photo I took 2 months ago!) Well, the room now belongs to Hakan but the ivy remains on the shelf. I don't trust myself to remember to water it when I do the other plants, so I decided to try something new.
All you need is a small, watertight container, a cotton cord and that's it! Poke a hole into the soil near the plant's roots and insert one end of your cord, a few inches deep. Put the other end into your container and fill it with water. Voila! The cord absorbs water and transfers it to the soil around your plant. I just did this for my ivy on Wednesday and already the little water cup is half empty. Man, that sucker musta been thirsty! Well, hopefully he'll start feeling better now.
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