Watering tips for long trips - Orchid Board

MateoinLosAngeles · #1 10-27-2023, 08:03 PM

This would fit in the growing under lights, windowsill growing, and most indoor growing setups... so I decided to post it on the beginner's forum!

What are your recommendations for taking care of your precious collection during long absences? I'm thinking of the upcoming holiday season in which after 4 long years of not being able to visit my family in Spain, mostly due to the pandemic, its aftermath, and a very long immigration process, I'll be able to spend a whopping 4 weeks in the homeland!

However, there are so many more instances in which we might be too busy to take care of our plants... family (or our own!) illnesses, hospital stays, last-minute work stuff... endless!

What ideas have you come up with to ensure your plants stay in tip-top shape during your absence, or at the very least, survive it? Especially indoors, where misting systems might be tricky, especially unsupervised.

Some that come to mind and their setbacks:

- Drip irrigation - Feels too complicated for a high number of plants, plus you don't wanna have water running indoors without at least some supervision.
- S/H - It's great, but it only solves the problem if you want to pot all of your plants in S/H, and it might be troubling in hotter weather if you spend a month without flushing the pot.
- Letting them be without adjustments – Very dependent on the season, probably can work great for winter vacations, maybe late summer, and setup... under lights? Maybe, windowsill... can you trust the sun?
- Letting them be with adjustments: lower light, HVAC to control temperature, maybe increased RH with a humidifier on. –*It can be expensive to leave HVAC on for so long, and humidifiers need refilling and can get nasty after two weeks.
- Train a friend or a paid person to water the plants correctly. – Probably my preferred option... but still... gotta trust them!