Repsol YPF

The best system is to have a good neighbour, a friend who is good with plants or a relative who will take responsibility for looking after them. In this way, the person who is travelling can have total peace of mind. However, in the absence of someone who can take care of these tasks, you will need to resort to homemade solutions. Firstly, you must assess the number of plants you have and where they are in the house. If you have a balcony full of plants, the best thing to do would be to install an automatic watering system. It is not very expensive and can be placed above them, so that it comes on three times a week, first thing in the morning or last thing at night. These systems are highly effective and they ensure that the small roof garden or balcony has the right humidity and required amount of water.  

If you have plant pots distributed in different rooms of the home, the best thing to do is to put them all in the coolest room and create a suitable micro-climate. The ideal humidity level is achieved by grouping the plants together and placing a large bucket of water beside them. Furthermore, the flowerpots should be placed on plates containing damp gravel or small stones. 

If there are no more than three plants, the best advice is to fill the bath with stones, pour water over them so that they are wet and place the flowerpots on top of them ensuring that they touch the stones but not the water. The bathroom is the perfect room because by nature, it is usually more humid than other areas of the house. If it is big and you have a lot of plant pots, it is the ideal room in which to leave all of your plants. 

Before moving on to the trickiest issue, watering, you must prevent the plants losing moisture through evaporation. In order to achieve this, you finish off the micro-climate with a plastic cover, which has been pierced in advance. In this way, the plants will be protected in an effective domestic environment. 

Remote watering
Although the person is on holiday, the plants maintain their life cycle and watering is essential for their survival. Homemade methods which involve burying a bottle of water with a pierced cap upside down in the soil or connecting the plants to water containers using cotton string via which the plants can absorb the liquid, are valid but behind the times. 

These days, companies have invested in solutions to this problem and have launched truly innovative products.  The consumer’s favourite, according to Internet forums, is water gel, better known by the name of the brand under which it is sold, Chupiplant. It is a very affordable option which may be found in superstores, supermarkets and nurseries and which provides plants with the required amount of water over a period of at least 15 days. Chupiplant is jellified water which reacts when it comes into contact with soil and the micro-organisms that it contains and turns into water, giving the plant the necessary moisture. The effect is not immediate and the change occurs gradually as the product decomposes. It contains rain water and nutrients and is very easy to use: you just need to remove the lid, turn it upside down and bury it in the pot at a depth of two centimetres so that the product is in contact with the soil. The first time you use it you must water thoroughly and check the contents fifteen days later. It is essential that you use the correct amount depending on the size of the plant pot. The instructions are provided by the manufacturer on the packaging. 

Self-watering window boxes, containers with a water tank built into the base making the plant self-sufficient, are also a good option. However, the success of this system is related to the consumer’s knowledge when assembling it and the plant species it is used for. In principle, self-watering pots should only be used for plants which need constant humidity, otherwise the roots may rot due to excess water. It is not advisable to buy self-watering pots without speaking to an expert about how they should be installed, how the water should be maintained so that the pot does not become saturated, and most important of all, which kind of plants you are going to put in it.