Too hot to water your garden? This clever set-up does it for you

With temperatures set to surpass 30 degrees again this week, watering your garden will probably be the last thing you want to be outside doing. To keep your plants hydrated and you out of the sun, here's a clever automatic watering set-up.

It's all well and good knowing how to water your garden plants properly, but when intense weather arrives, it can make it nearly impossible to keep plants hydrated and happy. With another heatwave on the way, now is the time to prepare your garden with some helpful watering set-ups.

Even though you don't necessarily have to water your garden plants every day in a heatwave, finding ways to keep them hydrated during the droughts is key. Garden design expert and influencer Ish has shared his secret to ensuring his plants are watered, even when he can't get into the garden to do it himself.

Sharing his watering setup on his Instagram @gardening.with.ish, Ish explains how he's been keeping some of his flower beds alive and hydrated despite being too busy to water them by hand.

"I have two flower borders in my garden. One that's absolutely booming full of life and looks fantastic, and this one, a little less so," Ish starts.

"So, what is actually the difference between the two of them? It's actually down to how I'm watering them. This one here is being done manually, and the one over there that's doing fantastic has an automatic irrigation system," he continues.

"And it's nothing difficult whatsoever. In fact, I'm actually setting one up on this one to overcompensate now, and all it is is just this single little bit of piping, and you can see that now and then it's just got little bits here which drip out water," points out Ish.

This is also a great way to keep your garden healthy while on holiday; you'll just need to ensure the irrigation holes are reaching your plants correctly.

"So you do a zigzag amongst the plants to make sure it's right near them, and over time it soaks that soil and keeps the plants nice and happy. So it's really quite simple," Ish explains.

"You can attach this to a hose as well if you don't have a timer; just turn it on and bobs your uncle, you're ready to go," he adds.

"I'm hopefully going to be reviving this bed by starting an irrigation system. We're really busy people these days; it's not something that we can get around to doing, and if you've got a big garden as I have, there's a lot to water," finishes Ish.

And if you're worried about how to water your garden during a hosepipe ban, then you can use rainwater you've harvested in a water butt for your irrigation system.

If you've got patio container plants that need a little more attention, then you can also use the IKEA tray hack Ish recommends. It's great for bottom watering and keeping plants hydrated for a few days without you needing to do anything by hand.