Matt–Oh no! That’s horrible! I’m sorry.

Jennifer–That’s a good tip, I’ll try and find the Lee Valley ones. When you publish the review of the two systems, shoot me an email so I definitely see it. I’d love to link to it, obviously this is a topic that a lot of people are interested in.

I bought 4 Plant Nannies plus 6 cheapo plastic Lee Valley spike waterers. The Lee Valley ones are much cheaper; the water just gradually leaks into the soil through two small holes in the spike.

Anyway, they ARE kitchy, and a bit of a pain to haul out and refill the bottles, but I love them.

You’re right that it can vary how much water you’ll need. If you’re not confident, you can always double up, but with the plant nannies that can get expensive.

With the Lee Valley ones, you may well be able to double-spike all your big pots when you go away.

At the end of this season, I plan to post a comparative review of the two waterers to my blog, if that’s helpful to anyone… ))

As for the crystals – I don’t trust ‘em. And the drip systems generally seem priced out of my league, plus tricky to set up given my extremely limited time and resources.

The bottle systems seemed just about right: screw in a plastic bottle and forget about it – for a few days, at least!

For trips > 1 week, I go with the friend drives over to my house to water well 1x a week (and I hope for the best — that they come water, water enough, etc.)

My plants are in large pots though, and can be moved to shady-ish protected-ish locations. So far, nothing has outright died. But, I also don’t have tempermental vegetables/tomatoes that are ruined by a little drought. And the flowers all come back (even the hibiscus which likes to be evenly moist, not drought/flood. It drops leaves, but comes back.)

Jeannie–That’s a neat idea. I’ve thought about some sort of vacation watering service, but couldn’t figure out a way for it to be worth my while and still charge a reasonable fee.

Heavy Petal–Thanks! Yeah, my first choice would definitely be the drip irrigation. The problem is that there is a walkway between my pots and the faucet, so I’m not sure my landlord would appreciate me draping the tubing all over the place.

Kelle–That’s an interesting point about letting the roots grow on/near the plant nanny. It makes sense.

Prue–Thanks! I have no idea what the traditional gift is for this anniversary. Invariably my we always go wine tasting to a different wine area in California, so it’s always the wine anniversary for us.

The problem with asking someone to water is that I don’t know anyone who would be willing to crash at my place, so asking a friend would mean that they’d have to drive over each day to water. I feel bad even asking someone to do that.

Dani–That’s a possibility. I could ask my mom to come by and top off the plant nanny’s.

One thing that I think is important to extend the longevity of the plant nanny is to give the roots some time to actually *grow* onto the terracotta. So, I would always leave my plant nannies in the pot and not just stick them a day before leaving. This is just my theory, but it’s supported by the observation of lots of roots attached to the plant nannies when I remove them after they’ve been in a container for a while!

I’ve used all these things! I find that the Plant Nanny-type gadgets only work for a day or two in hot weather. And the moisture crystals – ditto. (Plus, I’m a little scared of what’s in them – wouldn’t want to use them with edibles). It’s a lot more work to install (and more $) but drip irrigation is where it’s at. My whole balcony is set up that way, plus it’s on a timer (comes on every second morning) so I never have to worry about it — at home or on vacation.