I love houseplants. My husband and I love houseplants so much we built a special room to hold all of them when we designed our house. Ironically, we only love houseplants that don’t require lots of constant attention. To survive in our house, you have to be a fairly drought-tolerant plant! However, I do have an indoor blueberry bush and a dwarf lemon tree
that do better if they have a bit more water.
It was while dining at a local Mexican restaurant that I saw a great idea for providing water between our “once every one to two weeks” regular waterings. They had used wine bottles shoved into the dirt to provide a slow drip of water. My husband was skeptical, he said it would gush out and be gone in a matter of minutes. I, on the other hand, wanted to try it because it looked cool and I had a container of old wine bottles I had been saving for a reuse project at some point.
I used a regular-sized bottle in my blueberry bush and simply filled it with water and flipped it upside down quickly and shoved the bottle neck into the dirt. Then I timed how long it took for it to empty out. My timing told me it took somewhere between 6 and 8 hours for it to completely empty into fairly dry soil, which was a nice slow drip. So, now I fill a couple of attractive wine bottles with water when I think of it between waterings and let them drip into my two water-needy plants.
7 comments so far:
Good idea and if you didn’t like the label on the bottle, you could soak it overnight first to remove the label.
actually, then make a thing called the add a bottle nanny and you’re supposed to put that on the top of the wine bottle before putting it in the dirt and it should take a week or so depending on the plant before it drains (like aqua globes)
Jess, I think I found what you’re talking about. The Add-A-Bottle Plant Nanny Stakes
go into the dirt and hold a bottle. Thanks for sharing that with us!
or, drill a hole all the way through the cork that came with the bottle and stick it back in. should slow the drip considerably. i haven’t tried it yet, but i might, as soon as it is safe to put my plants back outside [it's freezing here]
Thanks so much for these great ideas! I have several very nice cobalt blue wine bottles I’ve saved and now I know exactly what I am going to use them for!!
I just stuck one in a planter a couple days ago and it’s only about half empty. No water nanny or anything.
You could put a drop or two of liquid fertizer in the bottle on occassion as well to give the plant a little boost. What a great idea! Thanks for sharing.