How to water your garden while you're on vacation

A classic watering timer, a drip system, or a neighbour dropping by now and then… these solutions help for a few days away, and good mulching limits evaporation. But they all share the same flaw: a fixed amount of water, decided in advance, that ignores what your garden actually needs.

The result: the timer waters during a thunderstorm, and doesn't increase doses when a heatwave settles in. Wasted water on wet days, water stress on scorching ones, exactly what you wanted to avoid by leaving with peace of mind.

Yet your garden's needs change every single day. So the real question isn't “what time should it water?” but “how much water does my garden need today?”.

Every day, your garden loses water through two channels: evaporation from the soil and transpiration from the plants. Together, that's evapotranspiration. It varies enormously with temperature, wind, air humidity and sunshine: a heatwave day can drain three times more water than an ordinary one.

The good news: it can be calculated precisely. The reference method is called FAO56, the standard developed by the UN to determine crop water requirements. Garden Connect runs precisely this calculation every day, for every zone of your garden, based on the weather at your exact address.

In practice: the app knows how much water your garden lost today, and therefore how much to give back. No more, no less.

While you're at the beach, the weather over your garden keeps changing, and the watering adapts on its own. If it rained overnight, today's watering is reduced or cancelled: rain counts as watering. If a heatwave rolls in, doses increase automatically, zone by zone. And with a Netatmo weather station, the calculation relies on the actual conditions measured in your garden, not just the forecast.

It's also a very real source of savings: by cutting unnecessary watering on wet days and over-watering, users reduce their water consumption by up to 50% compared to unassisted watering. Your vacation doesn't add to your water bill, it shrinks it.

Clay soil holds moisture at depth for days; sandy soil is dry within 48 hours. The same watering has a completely different effect depending on your ground, which is why Garden Connect factors each zone's soil type into its calculation.

And to go from estimate to actual measurement, the Gardena soil moisture sensor continuously tracks what's happening at root level. If the soil is still moist at depth, no watering, even if the surface looks dry. That's the difference between watering “just in case” and watering because it's needed.

The same water need doesn't translate the same way depending on your equipment: ten litres through drip irrigation is not the same duration as with a sprinkler. In Garden Connect, each zone is configured with its watering method (drip, sprinkler, watering can…), and the app converts the day's need into a concrete watering duration.

You no longer guess “how long should I let it run”: the app tells you, zone by zone. That precision is what turns a theoretical calculation into a simple action, and what avoids the litres wasted every day out of excess caution.

With a Gardena connected sprinkler, the loop is complete: Garden Connect calculates the right dose and triggers the watering automatically, with no intervention at all. You follow every cycle live from your phone, wherever you are. No need to ask the neighbour anymore.

Without connected hardware, you receive a precise daily recommendation, zone by zone, with the exact duration for your watering method: perfect for guiding whoever is looking after your garden. No more vague “water if it looks dry”, they know exactly what to water, and for how long.

Either way, you only water what's needed: the water savings follow, automated or not.