You’ve been planning a trip away for some time, and it’s taken months of saving for you to finally be ready. It’s the trip of your life: you want to go away for a few weeks – maybe even months – and discover new places in the world. You’re looking forward to this adventure, but there’s one thing on your mind: how bad will my home be when I return?
To be fair, your “home” shouldn’t be in that much of a bad shape if you’re not in it. The most you’ll have to deal with is some dust and maybe a couple of dead houseplants. Your biggest worry is the garden. Even being away for a couple of weeks can cause your garden to grow long and out of control – let alone a trip that lasts months.
There’s nothing worse than dealing with a wild garden after a vacation when you’re already tired. With that in mind, you need to figure out how to take care of your outside space while you’re far away from home. It’s possible – and here’s what you should do:
Tend To Your Garden Before You Leave
This step alone might be enough to take care of your garden while you’re away. It depends on how long you’re away – but if you tend to your garden before a one or two-week holiday, then it shouldn’t be too overgrown by the time you’re back.
Set some time aside to go around your garden dealing with all the common garden maintenance tasks, such as:
- Mowing the lawn
- Trimming back bushes/shrubs
- Pruning any trees
- Deweeding certain areas
- Using a strimmer around the boundaries
- Watering the plants/lawn
All of these things will help you create a neat garden that’s freshly trimmed and tidy. It’s far better to leave your property in this state than just to leave the garden as is. If you’ve already not mowed the lawn for a couple of weeks, then it’s going to be quite long before you leave – and it’ll just get longer and be harder to cut when you come home.
Tend to your garden and leave it in the best shape possible so it’s easier to look after and maintain while you’re on vacation.
Mulch Your Plants
While you’re doing all the usual gardening tasks, you should embark on a mission that protects your plants from getting too starved of water. You’re not there to water the plants regularly, but you can use mulch to help retain nutrients and decrease the need for watering. Mulch adds a protective barrier of organic materials above the soil so it doesn’t dry out – which is especially useful during very hot weather.
The trick is to water the plants and then lay down some mulch to trap all the moisture in. It helps the plants absorb more of the moisture over many days, so you can get away without watering them for a week or two. This is a great option if you’re only vacationing for a fortnight or less – you’ll return to healthy plants that are just getting ready for a fresh watering!
Buy A Programmable Lawn Mower
Most people plan their vacations during the summertime, which means you leave your garden at the worst possible time. The summer sun and weather conditions mean the lawn grows rapidly. Leave it for a week, and it’ll already be a couple of inches higher than it was seven days ago. Leave it for two weeks, and you’re in long-grass territory. Your garden will start looking like a field of wheat rather than a garden!
Obviously, you’re not there to mow the lawn, but you can ensure the grass gets cut regularly with the right lawn mower. Buy a robotic lawn mower and check that you can program it to cut the lawn on a schedule. This will let you set it up to head out and trim your lawn every couple of days without needing to do anything.
It’s a genius solution, though make sure you test the mower before you leave. You need to be sure it knows where your lawn is and doesn’t get stuck or drive off into the fence. If you’re happy with it, then you can set up the schedule and give your grass a neat little trim to prevent it from growing too long. It’s also essential that your lawn mower has a self-charging dock – this means it docks and will recharge between uses. Otherwise, you’ll run out of battery after a mow or two, rendering this idea useless.
Hire A Gardener For Some Casual Trimming
Your robotic lawn mower takes care of the grass – but what about everything else in your garden? If you’re away for over a month, then it’s a good idea to hire a gardener to help trim back shrubs, bushes, etc. Depending on how long you’re away, the gardener may only need to visit a couple of times.
Also, if you can’t find a good enough robot mower – or don’t trust them for whatever reason – then you can always hire a gardener to mow the lawn, too.
Install A Self-Watering System
Finally, buy some sprinklers with a timer system to automatically water your garden at different intervals. A garden usually needs around two inches of water a week, so set your sprinklers to go off and spray water around your green space.
In an ideal world, you want a programmable sprinkler that can be adjusted via an app. This means you can turn it off if you check the weather forecast and see it’ll be raining during one of the weeks you’re away. Or, if you see there’ll be a lot of sun and hot weather, you can program the sprinkler from your vacation to turn on multiple times a week.
At the end of the day, you don’t want to return to an overgrown garden that’ll take days to take care of. You’re tired from your vacation and just want to relax. Implement these ideas and solutions to take care of your outside spaces while you’re away, so you can come home to a neat haven that doesn’t stress you out.
