Every year around this time many of us encounter the predicament of wanting to go on vacation but worrying the whole time that the person designated to water in our absence will kill our precious plants. Or we just become hostages in our own homes and don't go anywhere. For me the dog sitter usually pulls double duty with my plants even though they have no clue how to care for them.

Recently I went on a 12 day vacation and in the 11th hour came up with this simple solution. I went to Lowe's and bought a two zone faucet timer. It was $25 and found near the hoses and sprinklers. I also bought two $10 sled base oscillating sprinklers. I already had two hoses. I positioned the first sprinkler with my full sun trees and used a couple flat rocks to keep the dogs from moving it by accident. The second was on my shades trees like my young cuttings, etc. I then positioned the plants in rows parallel to the sprinkler and turned it on to see if they would all get wet. One I did that for both I turned on the water and set the timer appropriately. Since I had little time to test it, I ran them each independently for 30 minutes every day starting around 5am. So one was 5-5:30 and the other say 5:35-6:05am. The length and frequency can be adjusted for the two zones independently.

When I came home my plants had grown tremendously with zero losses. I liked it so much and it saved so much time that I'm leaving it. I can't tell you how relieved I was to be on vacation, see the hot spells my home area and not have to worry!

I know it's an obvious solution but it works and for the $50, it was well worth it. I hope this helps someone else, particularly the writer of a recent post with this issue. Also, my wife isn't complaining about the time I spend with the plants any more, which I'm happy about, knowing she was right!

Blessings,

Timmy