Thanks for all the comments! Now to address them: 1. capillary matting I did not know this existed. I am looking into it, but it seems just putting everything in the bathtub with some water and covering with plastic may be easier. 2. small water pump How much did you pay for the pump? I can't imagine it's that cheap, and that's our goal: cheap cheap cheap. :) 3. inside + clear plastic + water well = may be ideal solution. I have sitting on our veranda a 5gal bucket (5gal seems to be enough for a week of absence: I don't even use but maybe 1/2gal per day when watering them), a 4ft tall table, a soaker hose, and a timer. I need to get a hose remnant today and can finish my contraption. That being said, no alterations have been done to any of these things yet, so if I get some comments pointing out this won't work at all (or I discover it doesn't tonight) then I can return everything no harm no foul (may keep the timer, though, because I love gadgetry). IF soaker hose doesn't work, I will put everything in the tub with a small layer of water and pray they live. Although really my prized things are the peppers, and they don't really need much water to survive, do they now? Again, thanks for the comments so far! (And curse Home Depot for not having flag emitters, which are apparently the type of emitters you need for low pressure drip irrigation systems�"this is the reason I've got a soaker hose now. Also it seems cheaper and since some plants are closer than 18" apart it seems better than emitters.)

I would do the drip system/timer as well. I hired a neighbor girl who takes care of her family's containers to water while I was on vacation. She is a very responsible person. The day I left there was a death in her family that required them to all go out of town. In my case most plants survived, but some were damaged to a point they never fully recovered from.

I haven't used it with my roses just other smaller pots so I just used the smaller pop bottles. For a rose I'd go with the big bottles, and maybe two at that, if you're going for a long time. I found the trick was to get the bottle full right to the brim, so there's no air, put a piece of paper over the top and upright it into the dirt and push it down in good. Then slip the paper out. It sort of forms a vacuum and the soil will pull the water out as it needs it. You might need to stake the bigger bottles upright. Like i said I did small flower pots and they lasted for a week for me.

I don't know how many trays you have, but one option would be to do a Home Depot run and pick up an inexpensive irrigation timer ($20) and a run of drip tubing and emitters. Set an emitter or two to dump into each tray and then turn the water on. If the 18 plants fit into a single tray, you can just drop the hose end into the tray and forget about tubing and emitters. Time how long it takes to get filled to the point where you normally water and then set the timer for that amount of time and the X times per week you need to (or think you need to) water. It would be terrible to hope that they were sufficiently watered and find you were wrong. Andrew