The bags are packed, the dog’s booked into the kennels, the neighbours are feeding the chooks and collecting the eggs, Mum’s clearing the mailbox… but what about the green members of your family: indoors, in pots, and in the garden?

Gardeners in tropical climes, where summer heat is accompanied by bucketloads of rain, can usually trust the skies to provide irrigation; pot plants need only be placed in a sheltered position where they’ll catch any rain, and the garden will more than take care of itself for a week or two - it will be a veritable jungle when you return! But for those of us who live in dry, temperate areas, where summer temperatures are accompanied by low humidity, hot winds, and often no rainfall at all, leaving our gardens at this time of year can be a traumatic experience!

Luckily, you have plenty of tricks at your disposal to help your plants survive your absence.

Most healthy, well-mulched gardens will survive 10-16 days without water if there are not too many extremely hot, windy days during your absence, and if you’ve given the plants a thorough soaking immediately before your departure. The soaking does need to be thorough, mind you: be sure that you have not merely wet the top centimetre or two of soil, but that the water has penetrated deeply (check by digging down with a trowel). You may need to water your garden for two or three times the normal duration, or on two consecutive days.

Mulch is essential: choose a coarse one, like pea straw, so that water penetrates through it to the soil below, even when the mulch is very thick. Avoid fine, compost-like mulches: these absorb moisture, encouraging plant roots to grow up into them (then, when the mulch dries out, your plants wilt or die).

Automatic watering systems can, of course, be set to activate during your absence, but power failures or cuts (e.g. in bushfire-prone areas during hot, windy days) can reset or switch off systems. It’s a good idea to write simple reset instructions for a neighbour or friend to implement if necessary (don’t rely on the printed brochures: from grim, exasperating experience, I know these are a real bother to figure out when you’re unfamiliar with them or in a hurry!). You can also ask a friend or neighbour to water the garden if there are two or more consecutive days of extreme conditions in the second half of your absence: your initial watering should cover the first week, and you can then be confident that there will be sufficient moisture to cover the second week, too.

Of course, let yourself be guided by your garden itself: some are full of delicate English perennials and will need more care, others of tough, self-sufficient succulents or native plants that can be happily left to their own devices for a month or more.

Even with automatic systems, certain areas will be less well covered or simply require more water. Hydrangeas are notorious for wilting during hot spells, for example, and ferneries suffer in hot winds. The roots of camellias must never dry out, or they will die. Give these plants an extra deep soak before you depart by leaving a hose trickling at the roots for 12-24 hours, so the entire root zone is moist. Mulch thickly. Some gardeners also cover such plants with shadecloth as an extra precaution. You can also apply wetting agents like Saturaid several weeks before your departure to aid water penetration. Garden beds near trees with vigorous roots (pines, eucalypts, willows) may need extra attention, too.

These are especially vulnerable to drying out because of their delicate, shallow roots. You will almost certainly need some form of irrigation for them while you’re away, but you can minimise the frequency of watering by mulching very thickly around seedlings. Leave a small area clear around each seedling: the mulch should not touch the stem. Thick mulch has the added benefit of reducing airflow (and evapotranspiration) around the little plants, so they’re less likely to wilt. You can also provide a little dappled shade for individual seedlings by snapping leafy twigs or branchlets from established trees or shrubs and poking them into the ground to the northwest of each seedling.

You can make a simple drip irrigator for each seedling by using a hot darning needle or skewer to poke a single hole into the bottom of a plastic 2 litre drink bottle (leave the paper label on the bottle to keep the water cooler). Fill the bottle with water and screw on the lid. Place the bottle on the soil immediately beside the seedling so the hole is in contact with the soil. Now gradually unscrew the lid: you can regulate the water flow by adjusting the airflow at the top; the tighter the lid, the slower the flow. Experiment to find the correct rate.

Certain lawns are more drought tolerant than others (some are specifically bred to tolerate dry conditions), so there is no hard and fast rule that applies to all lawns. Generally, the better the soil has been prepared, the deeper the roots will be and the more drought resistant your lawn. Set the mower blades a little higher in the weeks preceding your holiday, so that the grass itself can shade the ground and keep it cooler, and give it a good soak just before you depart. Remember, too, that lawns are usually tougher than they look: many varieties may brown off without water, but it is only the above-ground parts that are dead: most will green up again once watered. Check with your local turf supplier if you’re unsure.

Place them in a cool, well-lit spot, like your bathroom or kitchen bench. Moisture-loving indoor plants may be placed in a plugged bathtub with a shallow layer of water in the bottom (cover bottom with an old sheet to prevent pots marking the enamel). Indoor plants that like humidity can be placed on a tray filled with gravel and water.

Apply a wetting agent like Saturaid to all pots and hanging baskets several weeks before your planned holiday. Water pots very thoroughly just before you leave. Small pots and baskets may be dunked into a bucket or trough: the mix is saturated when no more bubbles rise to the surface.

Move pots to the south side of the house, into the dappled shade of a tree, under a sheltered veranda or pergola, or anywhere out of direct wind and sun (especially afternoon sun). Small outdoor pot plants won’t mind being brought indoors to a cool, well-lit area if it’s only for a week or two.

Single-stemmed plants in large tubs (camellias, citrus etc.) may be mulched (but keep mulch at least 10cm from the trunk).

If you holiday often, consider investing in pots with a water reservoir or those with wicking systems, or make your own with an old strip of thick cloth (tuck one end into a container of water and tuck the other down the side of your pot).

If you are to be away for a longish time and a friend or neighbour is watering the pots for you, it’s worth clustering all of them into a single sheltered area: not only will they increase the humidity for each other, but it’s less likely that someone unfamiliar with your garden will miss that one pot tucked around a corner or out-of-the-way spot!