Maybe you spent a little too much money on everything from sweet daisies to fragrant lavender and colorful dahlias. You water and fertilize and puzzle out a small flower oasis on the terrace, the balcony or Anne Holter-Hovind has created her own garden on the roof terrace. the garden. Then comes the holiday. If you do not have a friend who can come several times a week and water, then good advice is expensive. If not, the oasis may look like a sad and withered compost heap before you get home. Give the flowers a holiday in the shade – The first tip is completely free! promises Anne Holter-Hovind. Set the flowers close together so they shade each other. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news She is instagrammer and runs the popular garden blog Moseplassen. From her bulging roof terrace in the middle of Oslo, she inspires and advises her over 47,000 flower-loving followers on Instagram. – Put the flowers close together in the shade and preferably so that they shade each other, says Holter-Hovind. There must be shade on the pot, but preferably on the plant itself as well. This way, less water will evaporate from the soil and the plants will need less water. – The plants can just as well stand a month without sun, but then the plant will have smaller flowers, Holter-Hovind explains. In Norway, the summer weather is everything from drought and tropical heat to weeks of rain, so you must of course adapt what you do according to what kind of weather it will be during the holidays. For example, stretch a sheet to create shade. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news Anne Holter-Hovind also has tips for those who do not have shade on the terrace or balcony. – Use the outdoor furniture, a box or tie up an old sheet. Lay grass and leaves on the soil If you cover visible soil in the pots, it will have the same effect as shade. Here you can be creative. – You can use plants, leaves or grass, Holter-Hovind suggests and cuts up leaves that she puts in a thick layer on her pots. Cut up leaves or other garden debris and use as a cover in the pots. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news Furthermore, she recommends planting in as large pots as possible. In small jars, the water evaporates faster. The bigger jars you have, the greater the chance of success, is her advice. Here, the open soil in the pot has a layer of cut leaves. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news Maybe it is a piece of advice that comes too late this year, but it can be good to keep in mind when you plant next year. Get someone to water for you On the roof terrace of Anne Holter-Hovind, the pots stand close together. In them she has planted flowers, shrubs and even trees. Here it is not enough to fill a couple of water jugs to quench the thirst for the flowers. Perhaps the best thing is to get a neighbor to water for you, or pay a teenager to do the work while you are away. If not, there are irrigation solutions – from the simple homemade ones, to the ones you have to spend a few bucks on. Buy or make a drip irrigation system – Investing in a drip irrigation system with a pump can seem expensive, but is worth it if you can afford it, Holter-Hovind believes. You can connect a drip irrigation system to an outdoor tap if you have one. Remember to check the water restrictions in your municipality. Self-irrigation system. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news – Few people have a crane on the balcony, so then a large tub can do the trick, for example a mason bucket of 90 liters, she suggests. In the tub you put a pump that either runs on battery or solar cell as Holter-Hovind has chosen. You have to program it. Then you lay out the hose with the drips where the water comes out and distribute several drips on large plants and trees, while small plants get one. – You’ll need more drips than you think! she strikes convincingly. Here it is important to find out which plants need a lot of water and which ones need little. It may be worth investing in a drip irrigation system. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news If you are a little handy, you can create your own irrigation system. If you want to avoid watering all summer long, then you can try this automated system. The bottle trick If self-irrigation sounds too complicated for you, or if you read this article the night before you actually go on holiday, good advice is expensive. Many people have probably tried the bottle trick. Take an empty bottle and fill with water, preferably a large 1.5 liters. You can stuff the spout straight into the ground. In order for the water to drip out more slowly, you can put on the bottle cap, but then you have to make holes in the cap. If you use this method, it is advisable that the jar is already well watered. – This can help a day or two. My experience is that the water drains fairly quickly, says Anne Holter-Hovind. Self-watering pots At the garden centers, they also sell their own holiday waterers. It can be self-watering pots, or spouts that you can screw on drinking bottles. There are also watering balls in glass or plastic that have a funnel that is inserted into the soil. These need to be refilled after a few days, so there is no solution for the long vacation. Vacationers come in many forms. Photo: Lin Beate Gabrielsen / news Another method is to place a thread in a bucket of water while the other end is placed in the jar you want to water. Place the bucket higher than the jar. – Which plants survive most easily during the holidays and which ones do you have to be extra careful with? – The most difficult are probably the vegetable plants, such as tomato plants and lettuce, because they are very thirsty. Of the lighter varieties, she mentions Mediterranean plants such as geranium and lavender that are designed to survive the heat. Even one of Norway’s most popular garden blogs has been hit by the occasional irrigation blister. When she went on holiday for four days in late August last year, it was not so hot. – Therefore, I watered well before I left and bet that it would go well. But when I got home, my favorite tree was almost dead! Then she had to water well and cross her fingers for the next six months and hope that it would go well. And it did. – Remember, with a garden it is the case that you will not succeed in everything at once. Deal with it!
ttn-69
How the plants survive the holiday – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
