I go on vacation for 2 wks every year in late July. I do something similar to Linda. I have some very large saucers that I fill with water and keep my pots in a shady area. My son only has to water them twice a week then. By the time he comes over, the pots have soaked up the water and they are getting on the dry side. I have a couple of gardens that need a deep watering once a week. I mulch them, but these dry out more than my other gardens. My other gardens can handle going without water for 2 wks. Even when the temps are in the 90s, they still do ok. Btw, I do most of my watering late at night after I come home from work. I work 2nd shift and this time works the best for me. I use a water wand and just water the ground, not the leaves. I've been doing it this way for 28 yrs and I've never had a problem with my plants or my lawn. I feel the plants have a longer time to absorb the water before the ground and pots dry out. Kat

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 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.

Get yourself a small timer like you use for the Christmas lights and hook that up to a small water pump like found on one of those "water features" things you can set on the table in the living room. Give it a large supply of water via a 5 gallon bucket or larger and then put the output of the little pump into the bucket for the plant. If you set it up to catch the runoff from the container, you will not waste any water and the plant will get a watering once a day or whatever you want. I saw one set up for a single plant that used a childs small plastic wading pool with a small bilge pump and a return water catcher. It was good for 2 weeks plus for a single plant. Ted