How to make a wicking pot so your plants self-water | DIY Garden Projects | Gardening Australia

Whether you’re going on holiday or get too busy to water your pot plants, we all sometimes have times when we wish plants could water themselves. Costa has a low-tech solution to thirsty pot plants that makes a fun project, too. It’s a wicking pot. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe

You may have heard of wicking beds, which are designed with a reservoir or water in the base so the water wicks up through to the soil to the plant’s roots. A pot works on the same principle, but on a smaller scale. Like a self-watering pot.

The sizes can all be adjusted to suit the size of pot or pipe you have on hand.

What you need:
A large pot – preferably without drainage holes
An empty milk container (to patch any holes in the pot)
Silicone
Drill with large bit to match overflow pipe (see below) and smaller bit to make 2-3mm holes
An irrigation pipe elbow (sized to match drill hole – see above!)
1m x 2cm-wide diameter irrigation pipe (total length must be at least height + width of your pot)
1 irrigation pipe elbow to match pipe diameter
Gravel or scoria (10mm or smaller) – enough to fill the base of your pot
Geotextile/ hessian or other fabric – large enough to cover the inside of your pot
Potting mix (add compost/worm castings if available)
Plants

What you do:
If your pot has drainage holes, these need to be covered so the pot holds water. Costa recommends a patch of plastic cut from an empty milk container, stuck into place using silicone.

Drill an overflow hole about 1/4 of the way up the pot from the bottom. This allows excess water to run off so the plants don’t drown.

Fit the irrigation elbow into place. This can be turned down to allow water to flow out, or turned up to keep water in at a higher level.

Cut off enough irrigation pipe to sit flat in the base of your pot and drill a series of 2mm or 3mm holes along its length – this will be the water inlet pipe.

Cut another length of pipe that will reach from the base of your pot to at least the rim; if it’s a bit longer that’s OK, but not shorter. Attach this to the bottom pipe with holes in, using the second elbow joint.

Install this L-shaped pipe into the pot (pipe with holes at the base and longer pipe sticking out).

Fill the base of the pot with gravel or scoria rock. Rock crushed to 10mm or less is best. Add enough gravel to reach the overflow hole on the side of your pot.

Cover the rock base with the wicking cloth; you can use geotextile, shade cloth, or hessian. The idea is to stop the potting mix from getting washed into the rock base and blocking the infill pipe.

Fill the top of the pot with potting mix. Costa adds some worm castings and compost to his mix.

Add your plants!

Wicking beds are good for plants that like constant moisture, so Costa has chosen Vietnamese mint, Wasabi and common mint. Mint has a habit of taking over, so if you don’t use it regularly in your cooking, this is best left out!

Water plants from the top until they are established, then top up the water reservoir from the infill pipe; you know it’s full when the overflow pipe starts flowing.

Featured plants:
Mint ‘Common’ (Mentha spicata cv.)
Vietnamese mint (Persicaria odorata)
Wasabi (Eutrema japonicum)

*Always check species before planting: they may be environmental weeds in your area.

Filmed on Gadigal & Wangal Country in Newtown, NSW
___________________________________________

Gardening Australia is an ABC TV program providing gardening know-how and inspiration. Presented by Australia’s leading horticultural experts, Gardening Australia is a valuable resource to all gardeners through the television program, the magazine, books, DVDs and extensive online content.

Watch more: http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/gardening-australia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gardeningaustralia
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/gardeningaustralia
Web: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening

___________________________________________

This is an official Australian Broadcasting Corporation YouTube channel. Contributions may be removed if they violate ABC’s Online Conditions of Use http://www.abc.net.au/conditions.htm (Section 3).

COSTA: We all have times when we need a little help in the garden. We may go on holiday, or we might just be too busy to find time to water our pot plants, only to return home and find a plant gasping for emergency hydration.

Well, I’ve got the perfect solution for those thirsty pots that everyone can have fun making. It’s low tech, easy to put together, and it’ll help soothe a guilty conscience. I’m talking wicking pots. Wicking pots are the ultimate in convenience. They work by holding a reservoir of water

That plants draw on when they’re thirsty. Just like a self-watering pot. So first up, I need to patch any holes in the base of the pot. And this pot here has had a hole cut out of it. So rather than just put straight silicone, which could get pushed out by the gravel,

What I’m going to do is cut a piece out of this old milk container and put it over the inside, and silicone that in. It’ll make a really good solid join to turn this into a reservoir. You can pretty much turn any plastic pot into a wicking pot.

In this case, this is around about 450mm. It tapers a little bit. It’s perfect. It’ll do the job. So having sealed the base, what I need to do now is have an outlet pipe. So in this case I’m going to put it

About 8 to 10cm up the side of the pot and drill a hole. So this hole serves an important purpose. It enables the well of water to remain at a fixed height so you can fill it up, but it will only go that far. And if you get excess rain or anything,

It’s not gonna flood the whole pot and drown your plants. And then I’m just going to put this little elbow there. So that’s the outlet pipe complete. I’m happy with that. The next task is to install the inlet pipe. So I’ve drilled holes into this piece of pipe

Which will sit on the bottom of the pot in the water well, and it attaches to this piece of vertical pipe, and that’s going to be the inlet. So what that means is you can put the water in here, it comes into the well and will wick up.

And basically this also brings oxygen down into the soil as well, so it serves two purposes. So I’m going to attach the horizontal piece with the vertical piece with this little elbow. And then that can go straight into the bottom of the pot. So I’ve got the pipe loosely installed there.

The next step is to fill the void, where the water is going to be, with some gravel, because that allows it to be a little water tank, effectively. So I’ve just used some of this broken-up old terracotta pot. Of course you can use blue metal, but broken bricks, broken pavers,

Just bust them up and use them. Now, the real engine room of a wicking bed is the actual point where the wicking takes place. So what you need is a layer between the gravel and the soil to keep them separated, but that still allows the water to move up and down.

There’s a few options there. Of course, you can use what they call a geofabric, because that allows the water to move. You might have a few off-cuts of fly screen. It will do a perfect job. Or you could even use hessian. Again, that allows the water to move in and out.

Today I’m going to use this nice off-cut of geofabric because it will serve the purpose perfectly. We’re getting there now. The next step is to install the potting mix. I’ve used a premium potting mix, but I’ve also added to it some worm castings and some of my own compost. And it’s just beautiful.

So now is the happy time, which is planting, of course, and I’ve picked three moisture-loving plants that I think are going to really love these wicking pot conditions. First up is good old mint. You don’t want to plant that in your garden because it’ll go wild,

Whereas here in the pot it’s going to find that moisture and will just cascade over the edge. So my second selection is this Vietnamese mint. Again, this goes nuts when it has access to water. So its roots will really dig down. And like the mint, it will go mad

If you leave it off the leash in the garden. Contained in here, it’s got everything that it needs. It can’t get out, but it can get down to the water. And to spice it up a bit, I thought I’d have a go at wasabi. Now, it grows naturally along creek beds

Where there’s plenty of moisture, but still needs drainage. So in this case, with the wicking, it can get its drinking/feeding roots down into the water. I haven’t done it in a pot before. It’s a bit of an experiment, but let’s give it a go. This really does make gardening in pots even easier.

Whether you’re on a balcony or a rooftop where it might be hot and windy and dry sometimes, this can really help you. All you need to do to check on your water well level is put water in here. As soon as it overflows out here, you know that your tank is full.

Well, there you have it. Wicking. It’s something we all can do. I need it myself because I’m on the road a lot and I get frustrated when I lose plants. In this case, I’ve planted out this mix of mints, but you can put veggies, you can put flowering ornamentals,

You can put whatever you like and they will benefit from having that insurance policy of the water wicking well and the overflow so that if it rains, it’s not going to be flooded. Give it a go. It’s as easy as ABC. And let me know how you get along.