5 Tips to Keep Your Plants Alive While On Vacation

The pandemic has honestly brought a lot of stress to people, and we have thought of several ways to cope with it. Now that we are allowed to go outside, some of us have taken advantage of the time and took the opportunity to relax and be free from stress. 

For plant parents, a vacation may be pretty problematic because they might think that something might happen to their plant babies while they are away. If you are fortunate and have a friend who can look out for your houseplants, then good for you, but having someone who can watch and water them while you are away, will not be sufficient. It’s better to have someone who knows how to handle plants. But if your caretaker will not be familiar with houseplants, you can just easily create a checklist that they can follow as a guide. Here are some plant care tips to keep in mind when going for a vacation. 

1. Ensure That They Are Getting Sufficient Water

Make sure they are getting water. If you don’t have someone drop by and water your plants, there are other steps you can take to make sure that these plants will not be thirsty. 

One of the things that you could do is get a sprinkler; sprinklers are automatic, so you do not have to worry about turning it off and on, which means they will only turn off at a particular time but will also turn off so that the plants will not be overwatered. 

2. Skip the Fertilizer

 Before you leave or weeks before, make sure that you do not give your houseplants some fertilizers. When you give your plants some fertilizers, it makes them grow faster and may require them to have more needs that you might not be able to give while you are away. Not doing this may help your plants conserve their energy more efficiently while you are gone. Skip it for now and wait until you return before feeding them. 

3. Group Them Together

Before leaving make sure you organize the grouping of your plants. Make sure that the plants that need sunlight are grouped in one place, those who don’t need that much sunlight, those who need humidity, and those who need water. This makes caring for them much easier, and generally, plants that thrive together, look good together since they have similar requirements that make them have features that complement each other. 

Plants in their natural habitat tend to group themselves together. So it’s best to do this in your own plants at home for they will also have the feeling of being in the wild. Another benefit of doing this is being grouped together with the plants that have the same needs is good for the plant, for example, if you place a plant that loves humidity together, you help them create a pocket of moisture good for every plant in the same group but if you put a plant that loves sunlight and one that doesn’t odds are high that both of them will not like it. So its best to group them to keep your plants healthy

4. Move Them Away From Sunlight 

When leaving for vacation, place your plants away from sunlight. This doesn’t mean placing them in a shady corner where they do not get sunlight at all but if your plants are placed near a window, consider placing them a few meters away from it. This won’t make them photosynthesize as quickly as they do while you are away. Do not worry about your plant having enough sunlight, when it comes to these instances, they can actually tolerate toned down light conditions. This doesn’t make them thirsty. The more they are in the sunlight, the more water they would need. Once you return from vacation, you can then place them back to their original position and go back to taking care of them as you normally would. 

5. Create a Self-watering System For your Plants 

When you are leaving for vacation, we know that some plants are fine without water for a little while but some are not luckily there are several ways that you can do to keep your plant’s soil moist and happy while you are away. And these are just some of their examples

• This watering globe is great at keeping your plant’s soil moist for up to two weeks. This is a small clear globe with a large tube that you can fill with water and then stick the tube in the soil with this accessory, plants receive a slow thin water flow. 

• Self-watering planters are quite easy as it can save you some money by doing it by yourself or save you time if you buy it. Basically, this is a planter that has a water reservoir at the bottom and the pot that hold the plant has a small hole that has a string that comes in contact with the soil and the water. You can simply use a used water bottle and a piece of string for this.

• Another method you can do is simply place a string and make sure you bury it at the top 3 inches of your plant is fine then place the other end at a gallon container filled with water.

• Another method is when you place a small hole in the cap of a reusable water bottle then place it upside down, let it hang, or place it in a long wood above the plant to let the water drip slowly but this keeps the soil moist although for just about two days if you will be gone for longer I recommend using larger containers or other methods of your choice. 

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