hi everyone it's marianne
welcome to My Wasteless Life
as you can see right behind me i have my suitcase i'm packing for my trip to chicago
i'll be spending the fourth of july weekend there with my family
and lots of you are probably thinking of doing the same thing
as things open back up again and we're returning to somewhat of a normalcy
you're thinking of going on trips again traveling
going on vacation since we've been in quarantine for over a year
but also over quarantine we acquired so many plants and now we don't know how to leave them
and make sure they survive while we're gone
so in this video i'll be sharing with you some tips and tricks on
how to make sure your plants are taken care of
and survive while you're away and leaving your plants for the first
time is kind of like leaving your pets for the first time
but unlike your pets if you're not going to be gone for more than a week
then you don't really need to ask or hire someone
to take care of your plants while you're gone
but if you're going to be gone for more than 10 days more than two weeks
at a time then it's probably best to ask or hire someone to take care of your plants
you don't need them to come every day to check in on your plants
once or twice while you're gone would probably suffice
depending on how long you'll be gone so the biggest concern
while we're on vacation is how are the plants getting watered
i'll be gone for about five days in this trip
and usually the day after i return i don't have the desire or energy to do anything
so let's just say there's a full week that my
plants will be neglected so what i do is a couple days before i leave
i water the plants that are supposed to be watered while i'm gone
for a lot of them it's okay for them to be watered a day or two earlier
for some of them they could actually wait
until i come back before i water them
and those are usually my plants who prefer to be completely dry out before i water them
i might give them a little bit of water
just to tide them over and make sure that they'll be okay until i come back
but for the most part they can wait until i come back to water them
a couple of other things that you and i could do is to pull back our plants away from the window
that way they're not getting as much light and they won't use up their water as quickly
but if we cannot pull back our plants away from the window we could put down our blinds
and just keep them half open
or have a sheer curtain on the window to filter out the light it is summer time
so i don't have my humidifier running in my bedroom
i still do have it running in the living room
but if it runs out of water
it's going to be okay as mentioned it is pretty humid during this time of year
so if my humidifier stops working my humidity loving plants will be okay
for plants that i currently have outside i might have to
bring some of them in especially since we're experiencing heatwave
right now so i'll be bringing in some of the plants that i have outside while i'm gone
so that way those plants don't require as frequent watering as they do when they are outside
but for some of my other plants
even if i water them before i leave they cannot wait until i come back before i water them
again and they need to have access to water while
i'm gone so for those plants that need to be watered while i'm gone
i'll be setting up a self watering system for them and i'll show you diys
and then a gadget that will automatically water your plants on a set timer
so the first watering self diy system that i'm gonna show you
is great for smaller plants like this one
and i'm gonna use something like this
you can usually find this when you buy plants at garden centers
this is basically what they also use to make sure that their plants have self-watering systems
so that they don't have their employees watering their plants all the time
and i usually save this when i buy my plants and it's great to use during times like this
so basically what you want to do is to reinsert this at the bottom
of your plant in one of the drainage holes down here
and if you don't have this you could easily also diy this with a cotton twine and some stick
and just push it all the way in until it locks in place
next you're going to get a cup like this it doesn't have to be a clear
cup i'm using one like this so i could properly visualize it
for you all but you could take another nursery pot anything that has a hole on top as well
because you will then need to put the cotton twine through that hole
and just pull that through underneath
and just make sure it goes all the way through and
there you go and again just for proper visualization for you all
i am using a clear glass container but this is essentially
a cache pot for your plant so if you just use the one that you
already have and put the whole contraption in and then pour water
and just make sure it doesn't go any higher than the cup
at the bottom so this is what it would look like
you have the cotton twine submerged into the water and you have your plants on top of the cup
so that it's not sitting in water and you'll have your water level
just right below the very top of the bottom cup
through the setup your plant is going to get water through capillary action
so whenever it needs water
it's just going to get water from the bottom all the way to the soil of your plant
okay so for the next diy you're gonna need a plastic water bottle
and what you're gonna do with the cap
is to poke holes in it like i do i just use a push pin and you just like make holes in it
just you just push really really hard to make those
holes and you don't need to make a lot like i just have five here
and this actually way more than i need and you just fill up the plastic bottle with water
and seal the bottle cap
so it's important when you do this
before you install the self watering system is that the plant has just been watered
if not it will just use up the water
that you have in here right away this is supposed to be reserved while you're gone
like squeeze it a little bit just to make sure water is able to come out
and then just turn it outside down and the water would start to drip down
and this is optional you can put a terracotta
pot in first like a small one that would fit the plastic bottle top put it there
into the soil and then put the
plastic bottle upside down and this just helps to regulate the water drip more
as you can see this one is not dripping as much after i put in a terracotta pot
hopefully it would last for the entire time
that i'm gone you might need something bigger
if you're to be gone for long or if we have a much larger plant
here's a good self-watering system for your propagations
where they cannot really afford to be fully saturated
but they cannot be allowed to try out either
so basically what you're going to do is to create a self-watering tray for them i'm using LECA
and then fill it up with water
you don't want the water to be normally way above the LECA you want it to be a little bit below
because you don't want the
propagation sitting in water but since my propagations currently need water anyways
that's why i let it be a little bit above that but what's going to happen is
the propagations will seep the excess water up
right now and then it will leave some water at the bottom
and whenever they need water you're just going to take in water
through capillary action
and if you don't like doing diys or you don't want to do a diy self watering system
there's a gadget that you can use
to automatically water your plants on a set timer
and this portion of the video is sponsored by Emerging Green
Emerging Green is an eco-friendly family-owned small business based in Singapore
and they sent me their automatic trip kit which is a self-watering system for houseplants
and this is what the gadget looks like and it says it can keep your plants hydrated for
up to 99 days while you're on vacation
and this one runs on lithium batteries so you don't have to plug it in
and you only have to charge it every two months
the only thing is my kit did not come with a charger i guess it assumes that
most of us have a usb cable charger already
i know i have quite a few of them it was okay that
it didn't come with a usb cable for me to charge it
but just to note that this doesn't come with a usb
cable so you need to have one already in order to charge this
so the irrigation kit comes with this tube that which you will put in the in and out
and you just have to cut it according to the length that you want
and also comes with a dripper there's four of them in each one
you get two sets of them so you can have up to eight plants
watered and it also comes with a metal hook so you could hang the timer anywhere you need to hang it
and yeah so i will demonstrate quickly how it works for your house plants but
it's quite easy to set up and once you set it
up it's pretty much set it and forget it you just have to make sure it has enough access to water
to ensure that your plants are getting watered each time that it is turned on
so here's the whole system this one is set for
every day for two minutes here's the five gallons of water
i'm covering it so that it doesn't evaporate quickly
and it leads to this and it is watering all six plants
so if you would like to purchase this automatic trip kit the link is down in description
it is my amazon affiliate link meaning for every purchase made through my link
i will get a commission from the amazon affiliate program
as well as additional commission from Emerging Green
so now that you got the watering down here are some additional things that you can do
to make sure that your plants
are going to be okay while you're gone
if you have plants under the grow light then make sure that your grow light is set on a timer
i wouldn't recommend your grow lights be on 24/7
unless you have a self watering system also in place for your plants
under the grow light and also to make sure that your grow
light and self watering system together it's not a fire hazard
a lot of grow lights already have built-in timers in them you just have to set them up
if they don't have built-ins
then you can use a smart plug to make sure that they are turned on and off on a set schedule
next is to inspect your plants for pests and as a preventative measure
spray them with neem oil spray
or a pest preventative
treatment of your choice and if you do have plants that are currently experiencing pests
make sure you isolate them away from your other plants
and if you have propagations that are already ready to be
transplanted or repotted to soil or into a medium for your
choice make sure you do that days before you leave
or make sure that they can be self-sustaining while you're gone
propagations are less forgiving than established plants when they are left neglected
so make sure that you have plans for your propagations before you leave
so that you don't lose all that progress while you're gone
at the same token hold off taking on new plant projects or starting new plant propagations
when you know that you're going to be going on a vacation real soon
and if i'm hiring someone to take care of my plants or asking someone to take care of my plants
if possible i'd like to group the plants that have similar care
and similar watering schedule together
that way it's easier to leave the instruction of
"please water my plants that are on the kitchen table"
as opposed to telling them please water all my monstera house plants
because most likely the person you're hiring
don't know how to properly identify all the houseplants that you have
and second if they're all over the place
it's more likely that they will miss a plant that needs watering
whether i'm not i'm asking or hiring someone to take care of my plants
i will still have my plant care kit ready
which contains all the products that i need to take of my plants
so just in case i need to ask someone
or have someone
come take care of my plants they can easily find the products and tools that they need
to take care of my houseplants. you have to make
it as easy as possible for the person who is taking care of your houseplants
whether you're paying them or not it's also for your peace of mind
that your plants are being properly taken care of while you're gone
so those are the tips that i have for you on how to take care of your houseplants
and make sure they survive while you're on vacation
if you have any other tips that you would like to share please write them down in the comments
if you like this video please give me a thumbs up and if you're new here please do subscribe
i'm gonna go ahead finish packing and i'll see you in chicago
but until then i see you i appreciate you
take care of yourself and each other
and have a plantiful day
bye
four to six days later
i'm back and let's see how my plants did
this one looks good nothing wrong with this one but this one has a dried and dead leaf
but so far everything here is doing okay the neon pothos probably need water
and so does the manjula pothos
i can see some curling of leaves out there
and this one also looks great i see also a bit of a yellowing leaf down there
over here the plants do look good but i have to check if they do need water
and this one when i came in i topped it off even before i grabbed
my camera because the water levels were a bit low
this there's a damage here from the pink syngonium
this one is a drying leaf but everything looks good
i just needed to top the water off but everything else looks good over here
and this cebu blue pothos is thriving
this one i was worried because
it didn't need watering before i left but i know it's about to dry out real soon
and the raphidophra tetrasperma pushed out new growth while i was gone
and this one my thai constellation monstera
still looking good and i see that it's also starting to push out a new growth
and my ficus elastica also doing well
monstera adansonii also pushing out new growth
and let's check the water levels
pretty low and i probably need to refill that tomorrow
this one i know it would do okay
along with the hoya crimson princess and the peperomia string of turtles
and here my syngonium albo
looks like it also pushed out a new leaf while i was gone and trying to push out a new one
and this one is an almost completely white one she's been busy while i was gone
everything else looks good here
this one needs watering also kind of like with the monstera adansonii wide form
this one also looks neat watering it's a curly spider plant and you
know it needs watering if the leaves are no longer curly
what's going on in my ikea greenhouse cabinet
so the top layer everything looks good the anthurium looks
good the string of hearts is looking good as well
my jade satin pothos
watering levels still okay does feel a bit dry though it;s unfurling new leaf which is great
everything else here look good no casualty
curtisii looks good the haworthia looks good
everything here so far looks good i mean i have to check again tomorrow morning,
now i'm just doing an initial sweep
so this one kind of suffered a little bit the white one died
let's see what's going on with the rest of my propagations
all right so the monstera siltepecana at least the yellowing has stopped
the watering tray method did work i think because the water is almost gone now the LECA is still wet
but the water is essentially gone the water reservoir that i left for them
and the sphagnum moss that they're in
or the sphagnum moss + coco coir mix that they're in is moist but not overly saturated
so this method really worked as far as self-watering your houseplants while on vacation
and this is the philodendron rio silver stripe it has pushed out a new leaf
and the scindpasus silver
hero this one also pushing out the new leaf it and has grown significantly
and the epipremnum pinnatum variegata looks like it's about to push out a new leaf
but so far nothing drastic everything is doing well
and you know, nothing that i
made a mistake on when it comes to making sure they're taken care of while i'm gone
and i'll give more updates to see how they're actually doing as i inspect them more
tomorrow and in the coming days