Let a Shoelace Water Your Plants for You

Long-term plant-watering hacks are usually marketed toward people who are heading away on vacation, but the reality is that plenty of people with houseplants are just too busy to water them all the time, too. Your best intentions are no match for your most pressing responsibilities, so let’s set up a quick and easy way to make sure your plants stay watered even when you’re not giving them your full attention. All you need is a spare shoelace.

To keep your plant consistently watered, you’ll need four things in addition to, well, your plant:

You’re going to use a method commonly associated with long wicks—the kind used for candles—but a shoelace works just as well. All you need to do before getting started is make sure the plant in question has a drainage hole at the bottom of its pot, according to Lawn EQ. Also, do this outside or over some newspaper to prevent a mess.

Knot one end of your shoelace and saturate the whole thing in water, pull your plant out of its pot, and use your pencil or other long tool to jab the free end deep into the root ball, and drop the knotted end through the drainage hole. From there, lower the plant back into the pot and place it on a shelf where the shoelace can dangle down into a pitcher of water, which should contain anywhere from 16 to 32 ounces.

The water will soak into the shoelace, traveling upward into the root ball, and the roots will absorb what they need as time goes on.

This method is great for anyone who keeps their plants high up on shelves within their home, too. If it’s hard to reach up to water a plant that’s high off the ground, it might be easier to refill a water bucket lower down. You can obscure your container and shoelace with decorations like picture frames.

You can do this outside, too, especially for seedlings that are growing in a pot, but tie something heavy, like a hardware nut, to the end that goes into your reservoir so wind or critters don’t pull it out.