Garden stress is real and a worry many of us are facing as the school holidays trundle on and we pack up our bags and head away on holiday. 

Here in Australia, it couldn’t be worse timing to head away with heat waves, storms and hot winds all negatively impacting the garden turning it into a wasteland upon our return. 

There are a few key things you can do before you go to ensure you come back to an oasis.

1. Delay tidying as long as you can

Make sure you tidy up as late as possible, pruning, weeding, edges and lawns are all growing strongly in the warm weather so giving them a cut as late as possible will reduce the amount of growth whilst your away.  It may be tempting to go a little lower on the mower or take a bit more off the hedges, but this will only add to the stress of your plants as it exposes the sensitive parts to the sun drying them out more, so stick to y0ur normal regime. 

2. Watering

Making sure your garden has plenty of water whilst you're away should be top of the priority list.  Start with a long deep water to really soak the ground, more is more here.  If the water runs off quicker than it soaks into the ground then you should apply a wetting agent, hose ons are great and make the job easy. 

3. Mulch

Then check your mulch is topped up to prevent all that water from evaporating away.  I have a couple of leaky hose pipes (not actually leaky hose pipes, the irrigation lines with various holes in them) that I set up along hedges and lawns and other thirsty plants.  A simple tap timer gives me the reassurance the garden will get water whilst I’m away.

4. Pots

Then it’s time to collect up all your pots and group them together in a shady spot.  Pots dry out the quickest in the garden so by grouping them together you create a microclimate that dries out slower, especially in the shade.  You can also put them in plastic trays to act like a reservoir for water – if you are away for a while put some coarse sand in these to prevent mosquitos from breeding in the still water.

If you don’t have a shady spot you can easily erect some shade sail over your potted plants to give them a bit of protection – it doesn’t have to look stylish if you’re not there to look at it!  

5. House plants

For my house plants they also have a little holiday to the bathroom!  I group them all together in the shower and give them a really good soak ensuring the root balls are drenched, the cool and dark bathroom lessens the evaporation too– when I return I give them another good soak from the shower before putting them back out around the house.

Whilst here in Hakuba I noticed a clever little trick for the holiday snow season, shrubs have all been tied up to prevent the weight of the snow snapping and damaging the limbs.  In the cities scaffold surrounds the larger trees that help protect the branches from the buckets of snow - I just love the care and dedication to the care of their plants.