What your plants actually need while you're away

Summer means holidays, and every July I get the same message: "I'm away for two weeks, what do I do with my plants?"

Here's the thing. Most of the advice floating around is written for a generic plant that doesn't exist. Your plants have already told you what they need, you just haven't had a reason to notice yet. So instead of a checklist, here's how I actually think about it when a client asks me to plan for their trip.

Start with where the sun will be, not where it is now

Light changes through summer in ways people don't expect. A spot that was gently bright in May can be scorching by August as the sun's angle shifts. If you're going to be gone for two or three weeks, don't just think about watering, think about whether that windowsill is about to turn into a grill. Pull anything sun-sensitive back from direct glass before you go, not after you get back to crisped leaves.

Grouping isn't a trick, it's genuinely how plants buy each other time

Clustering your plants together raises the humidity around them and slows down how fast they dry out, because they're sharing moisture through the air rather than each losing it alone. It also means if one pot's tray overflows slightly, it's not making a mess on its own. Put your thirstier plants (ferns, calatheas, anything with soft leaves) in the middle of the group, and your tougher, more drought-tolerant ones (sansevieria, zz plant, most succulents) on the outside.

One caveat: grouping plants closely means pests move between them far more easily, mealybug and spider mite especially. Check the underside of leaves and where leaves meet stems before you cluster anything together. A single plant with an early infestation can turn into a collection-wide problem in the two or three weeks you're away, and you won't be there to catch it early. If you spot anything, isolate that plant rather than grouping it, or deal with it before you go.

Water before you go, properly, then stop worrying about it

One deep, thorough watering the day before you leave does more good than a light top-up. Water until it runs through the drainage hole, let it fully drain, then leave it. A properly hydrated plant in indirect light can comfortably go two to three weeks. The plants that die on holiday almost never die of thirst, they die because someone panicked and left them sitting in a saucer of water for a fortnight, and the roots rotted instead.

The self-watering trick that actually works

Forget the wine bottle spikes, they're inconsistent and often just flood the pot. A better version: a bowl of water with a strip of capillary matting or a cotton wick running from the water into the soil. It draws moisture up steadily rather than dumping it. I use this for clients with a lot of thirstier plants and a long trip.

If you're gone more than three weeks, that's not a DIY problem anymore

This is genuinely where I'd tell you honestly: past about three weeks, especially in a heatwave, no amount of pre-holiday prep replaces someone actually walking in and checking on things. That's not a sales line, it's just true, conditions change and plants don't wait for you to get back from Portugal to tell you something's wrong. If that's you, a single watering visit costs far less than replacing a collection you've built up over years.

If you want a hand working out what your particular plants need before you go this summer, that's exactly the kind of conversation I'm happy to have on the phone, free, no obligation.