A budding gardener has shared how you can stay on top of your plant care by using an antiquated system in her garden. Syd Roope shared the method in a TikTok video from 2024, where she’d showed off her olla.

For anyone unfamiliar, ollas are a porous, unglazed clay pot, often terracotta, used for slow-release irrigation in gardening. Ollas were found to be first documented in the world's first agricultural science textbook, the Fan Sheng-Chih Shu, over 2,000 years ago, and it’s alleged that the system originated there. In the video, Syd revealed she made her own DIY olla from a terracotta plant pot and a saucer glued to the top, before inverting it to use properly.

She explained how she buries the olla under the surface of the ground in her garden, filling it up with water through the hole in the plant pot. Syd said: “In the summer when it gets really, really hot, you probably have to water once, maybe twice a day when it gets to be like 110 degrees (43 degrees celsius).

"But with this, you bury it underground, and because it's porous, it will leach out water when the soil gets really dry, and the roots will come attached to this so that I don't have to come here and water it every day.”

Syd uses several ollas in her garden to help cultivate her plants. A number of green-fingered fans praised Syd for her hack.

Experts at Plantura shared a number of advantages to using ollas in your garden, including reducing the need for constant or regular watering. It also pointed out that your garden will require less weeding, as “the topsoil remains drier, weeds germinate less easily”.

It’s also a great way to minimise attracting fewer diseases and pests. Plantura wrote: “Watering with ollas keeps the plant leaves dry, eliminating moisture-loving fungal diseases such as downy mildew and late blight. Slugs also have a harder time moving over dry soil.”

The experts also shared how you can make your own ollas for watering at home, without the need for forking out for an expensive one. You’ll need:

• Two unglazed terracotta/clay pots
• A flowerpot saucer
• Hot glue (tile glue is also suitable)
• A flat piece or shard of clay

How to make your own olla

Glue the large opening of two clay pots together. No water should be able to escape through the join.

Now glue the flat clay shard over one of the drainage holes so that no water can get through. (Alternatively, you can use mortar, silicone, a flat stone or a cork to seal the drainage hole.)

Lastly, fill the homemade olla with water (using a funnel if necessary) via the unsealed drainage hole on the opposite side. The saucer serves as a lid for your homemade olla.