It seems like self-watering containers are all the rage these days. It’s certainly being discussed a lot on the web (for example, Louise @ Buddy Garden just bought an Earth Box). They’re a great option for people who forget to water and fertilize. You just fill up the reservoir with water and some diluted fertilizer, and you’re good to go until a few weeks later, when you remember to water again.
Practical doesn’t have to be ugly! Check out some of these self watering pots:
Montebello Planter ($69.95), Self Watering Stackable Planter ($29.95), QuadroI.V. Plant Pot (159.50 pounds, sadly I couldn’t find anyone in the U.S. selling it), Grobal ($14.95), ($69.95).
More of a DIY’er? Check out these instructions on how to make your own self watering containers.
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p.s. Be sure to check in tomorrow. I’m going to post photos of a container I made as a Mother’s Day gift for a client. I’m totally obsessed with the Lemon Zest petunias I used in the pots. 
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Earthbox is expensive. H made me his version using PVC pipes and recycled nursery plant trays. I’ve been using it for over a year. It works!
Did I hear you’re obsessed with Lemon Zest petunias? I thought I would never hear it coming from you! Didn’t think you would be “in love” with petunias LOL! I have yet to start planting in my Earthbox because the weather is not stable… still have some chilly nights.
Hi Fern
Self Watering containers are awesome, except that I don’t use them the way I should. I just water the plants normally, from above, not in the reservoir, and the reservoir stops the water from going all over the balcony. I guess the it helps here in Oz to have such hot and dry weather, so the water saving techniques are a godsend. For some reason too the plants in these pots don’t suffer if the water stats in the bottom for a while, unlike the pots I have which are not self watering and only have drip trays underneath.
But doesn’t the water resevoir of these self watering pots get sort of icky? I can’t think of anything involving standing water that doesn’t get some algae or whatever growth over time and become sort of icky…
(Although I can see how using the resevoir for water run off so you don’t drip on whatever is below your balcony as prue suggested might be a good idea.)
sdat — Like Prue mentioned, you can’t see the reservoir. On most self-watering containers, the reservoir is filled with the water that normally would have run out of the bottom of the pot. Earthboxes have a reservoir below the plants that you cannot see. You fill the reservoir through a spigot and then the water is wicked into the soil from below.
Yeah, I’ve seen these products and I know how they work… I know you can’t see the water resevoir, but I still can’t help but think it must be kind of gross. Hidden, but still gross… I can’t get over that part. Also, they are typically plastic and I’m sort of opposed to unnecessary use of plastics since they are so environmentally unfriendly. You can buy self watering inserts for other types of containers, if you want to make your own, but we’re still back to the ick factor. Clearly I’m not the target market!
Also, sort of ironic that a plastic pot which is designed to help gardeners grow exotic plants by reducing the burden of watering, is called an Earth Box.
(By exotic, I mean non-native to the area where the plant is being grown. The linked article mentions the success of growing tomatoes in AZ, facilitated by an Earth Box, of all things!)
sdat — Actually tomatoes are native to South and Central America, so Arizona isn’t that far off. The Aztecs grew them, and their territory included a lot of the American Southwest. So, I’m not sure how ironic it is to call a box filled with earth (i.e. “dirt”) an “earth box,” when it helps you cultivate plants that have probably been grown in this general area for at least several hundred years. If you want to be a purist, you wouldn’t be able to grow any vegetable. Everything humans grow has been slowly domesticated over millennia of human development.
AZ is pretty far from both S. and C. America, last I checked. We may be using different maps.
It seems to be named ‘Earth box’ as an attempt to capitalize on any positive environmental association with the word (since it is marketed as requiring less fertilizer and water, and an aid to living more sustainably), rather than b/c it is filled with dirt. (In which case, they probably would have called it Dirt Box, which I already like better!)
sdat — OK. You win.
My upstairs neighbor is of the opinion that water falling from her balcony from watering her plants is something I should have anticipated when I purchased a ground-floor unit and that I really just have to live with it. I appreciate her wanting to have a pretty container garden. But I don’t appreciate the sheet of water falling down from above onto my patio. Am I the unreasonable one? Should I just expect that the water from her plants will fall down on me and just ‘deal with it’ as she says?
No, it is the same with me! I moved into a ground floor flat and met the lady upstairs. She joked that the previous resident threatened to kill her when she watered her plants because the sheet of water drenched his almost dry clothes that were drying. (she admitted she was petrified of him)
I laughed it off at the time but having just experienced it myself….I won’t threaten to kill her but I will give her 2 choices!
1) water plants when I’m at work and not during anytime at weekends
2) move house as the management are strict on that type of thing.
Grrrrrr! x