12 best self-watering planters to help your greenery flourish

This terracotta plant pot nests over the neck of a bottle to uses it as a reservoir, and it was right up our street.

Having polished off a bottle of red and a few bottles of beer, in the name of science, we filled the pot with compost and planted both some radish seeds and a young spider plant. We left the ensemble on the kitchen window sill, switching the bottles whenever the old one ran out of water, to test the variety of looks it offers.

There were two practical issues we had: the wick (which relies on a syphoning action to draw up water from the bottle, over the lip of the pot and into the compost) didn’t work at first, because we didn’t soak the wick before we put it in the bottle... oops. Since then, the soil has remained damp and the plants are doing well.

The other drawback is that the plating area is limited by the hole in the middle (presumably for balance) and therefore it’s best suited for very small plants or window-sill favourites.

We think that it’s a novel idea that could be improved with a larger pot, perhaps, provided it (or the cat) doesn’t tip the bottle, but other than that, we really like this product.

It was helpful to see the water level in the bottle reducing each day, which gave us confidence that it was effective, too. At £14.95, it’s not a rip-off and it’s a nice way to recycle a fancy bottle.

Kikkerland also makes little bottle-top herb planters that are quite cute (£10, Trouva.com).

A sturdy white pot with a traditional round shape, the PS fejö is a simple design with no real assembly required. At 35cm tall and with an outside diameter of 39cm, the floor pot can fit snuggly into pretty much any corner indoors or out. It comes on wheels, so don’t leave it on a hill or it’ll run away with your flowers, though the wheels come in handy when you’re hoovering and want to get underneath.

The only quirk is the bright-orange tip of the watering reservoir, which isn’t very subtle, and makes it look like someone’s snorkelling around in our marigolds. The white gauge stick isn’t as easy to read at a glance as some competitors, and it’s a bit plastic-looking for some tastes.

Otherwise, it’s a great all-rounder for the price and is still in good use a year on (we’re growing sunflowers in it this year). As an indoor planter, we barely ever have to top it up. This one is only available in store.

This year’s version of the delta 10 is still a discreet, yet stylish addition to any home or office, just as they’re meant to be. They’ve added a little space and a little water meter at the end of last year’s model, and it now comes in “taupe” along with four other colours.

We’ve been using the one sent to us last year as a centrepiece on our dining table, growing seasonal flowers and herbs, and it’s been consistently decent throughout.

Still at 13cm x 30cm x 11cm, the same measurements as last year, and weighing in at just under a kilogram dry, this year’s delta 10 still fits snugly on an average windowsill, mantelpiece, or those totally impractical 15cm-deep picture shelves from your ‘live, laugh, love’ phase.

The reservoir needs a top-up every three to five days, depending on the weather and where you put it, which is easy enough to do, due to the well-designed feed/grill on the end – you can just run it under a kitchen tap.

You can also get the delta 20 (£39.05, Lechuza.co.uk), which is about twice the height and price of the 10, but retains the narrow width, making it still slim enough to fit anywhere.

All Lechuza products have different colour options and come with a three-year warranty.

These smart gardens come with their own app and are packaged like an Apple product. They’re available in different colours too (grey, beige and white). Stylish and quite exciting to unbox, they can be assembled in minutes.

All the pieces fit together with satisfying precision across the three C&G products we tested, and set-up was so easy that we didn’t realise there were instructions in the box until after we had the units up and running.

The SG 3 looks a little like a lab kit and it does provide the perfect balance of light, according to the room you tell the app you’ve left it in.

We filled the trough with water, stuck the little clear plastic germination hats on the seedlings, and left it on in our utility area. We’re not convinced the light is any better than a south-facing window sill, but our cat can definitely find his dinner at all hours.

While the yield wasn’t anything spectacular, it was fun, and we were checking on it more often than the other planters. We feel our results were skewed by the heat this summer, and the artificial light concept is something that will really be at its most prominent in winter.

We think it’s a good way to spark children’s interest in gardening if you’ve not got a lot of space, and you can rename the plants after them on the app, which makes it very engaging. Our young niece was enthralled by it.

Designed to take care of your plants while you enjoy a long weekend away, this little spike-waterer mushroom is a simple, yet elegant device – a hollow stained-glass mushroom with a tiny hole at its base from which water drips into the soil.

For it to work, the cork has to be jammed in properly to form a vacuum, or the water will dissipate very quickly.

We placed the mushroom in an existing plant (that, in retrospect, may have been a little big for it) and monitored it. We found you have to replace it every other day or so, but in fairness it saw a lot of sun this year and it isn’t designed to last longer than two days anyway.

The only issue we had was that sometimes the cork can be a bit fiddly to get out. Being a wooden cork, instead of something springier, such as rubber, for example, there’s always the slight fear we wouldn’t be able to get it out without breaking the glass or a fingernail in the process. It could do with a little string, or a little model on top of the stopper to make it easier to insert and pull out. We glued a kinder egg toy Tinkerbell to it to resolve the issue ourselves.

Otherwise, at £19.95, it’s an effective way of watering, and looks attractive. It doesn’t need any real effort to set up, and it looks really cute nestled among our shrubs.

With its 25 pod capacity (five per tray, with a spare for storage that keeps it fresh for a week), the 25 is definitely one for those who feel heavily committed to fresh salad.

The stackable (up to three units), and wall mountable (we didn’t risk it) unit is well built and is about the size of a fish tank. It makes quite a statement when it’s all lit up with its twin 35W LED lamps that line the metal arms, with the computing unit tucked discreetly and safely under the bridge that sits over your greens. Much like the sun, the lights are on an automatic 16-8 hour on/off cycle, which you can alter via the app, if needs be.

It also claims to be the most energy-efficient mini-garden, compared with its competitors, costing an estimated £20 in power output per year, and making it one of the most eco-friendly salad gardens on the market.

The stand-out element for us with this unit is the patented five slideable tray system that’s wick-fed and designed for a continuous planting and harvesting cycle over the course of five weeks, like a conveyor belt.

The biodegradable pre-seeded pods cost £2.99 a pop or £7.98 per month on subscription. There are more than 75 options, which fit all C&G models and can be replaced like a printer cartridge.

We saw the first shoots in less than four days, but there doesn’t appear to be anything stopping us from just re-potting them.

We also found the staggered growth cycle makes for an interesting “evolution of man diagram” effect, and it’s handy the base can be slid out like a kitchen drawer and that it comes with a handle, so you can remove the trays without getting your fingers wet.

Other than that, unless you’re living in a dungeon, we’re not really sure if it truly merits the price tag in the summer, though we think it will come into its own during winter or in less well-lit spaces.

We like the eco-origami idea of this pot. It’s a bold and creative take on plant pots in general, and there’s just something interesting about its aesthetics that we can’t quite put our finger on.

This pot is quite artsy, environmentally conscious (it’s made of recycled plastic), easy to transport and post as a 40g flat pack, and it’s not leaked on us yet, despite it looking like it should (you have to keep the waterline below the base or it will flood the surrounding area).

Maybe it’s the lovely stained-glass blue colour that’s won us over or perhaps it’s the fact that having spent 20 minutes flapping around folding the thing, we’re quite proud of ourselves that it hasn’t fallen apart. It’s the delicious but slightly imperfect home-cooked pie of plant pots.

The wick concept works similarly to the bottle planter mentioned earlier in this round-up, and all you need is a 15in standard plant pot (which sort of defeats the principle of it being eco-friendly, in a way) to pop in it, along with your plant. You can then hang it anywhere, with a bit of string, though it does collapse in on itself if you don’t tie in enough points around the threaded ‘shoelace’ that reinforces the top, to keep it together.

There are also similar versions available.

The nido cottage hanger is simple enough to put together and took us less than 10 minutes from unboxing to hanging. The steel wires are attached to the pot with little metal toggles, and it can hold 15kg comfortably. A year on, it’s still hanging proud, fully laden, so it’s definitely not flimsy.

It also comes in two sizes (28cm and 35cm) and five colours (white, two shades of grey, sand brown, and mocha). It held the plants well, hasn’t leaked all year, and didn’t fall off our wall. Top score.

The faux-rattan basket fits well with most aesthetics and is easy to clean with a soapy cloth.

We replaced last year’s marigolds with a spider plant and hung it off a hook in our kitchen, where it still looks decent, despite our fears it may be a little chunky for indoors. It was easy to refill while hanging, lasting longer than we’d expected, and much longer still when hung indoors.

It can also be used as a standard pot, so we’re adding an extra point for versatility.

Wilko is our go-to for budget gardening solutions. Despite costing around a fiver a year ago, the simple self-watering pot inserts and tray we kept from our 2021 review are still holding their own – this time against a dying house fern that we rescued from a bin in March.

The brand has ditched the single-unit idea and now sells the base insert at a slightly higher price than last year (from £2, Wilko.com) in various sizes that slot easily into the bottom of a Wilko pot (£3.60, Wilko.com) with the soil being fed via a drip tray (£1.20, Wilko.com) underneath.

The reservoir is subtle and the set-up was completed by a four-year-old. There is no water-level gauge other than looking at whether there’s still water in the under tray, which we suspect our cat’s been at to mess with our results. We’ve been adding water to the tray whenever it gets dry for longer than a day or two and the fern has thrived.

Wilko also sells the clever pots as a 50cm-long trough (£3.60, Wilko.com), as well as hydro balls that you can put in with your soil to retain extra moisture, if you’re going to be away for more than a week or two.

The major selling point is that it’s by far the most affordable on the list – you can get the whole lot set-up for less than £10, though, while there are no major practical problems with it, it is less stylish than the other feeders.

A year on, this is still a sturdy, stylish little boutique number with a basic tray reservoir at the bottom. It hasn’t got a meter, but it does the job pretty well – especially outdoors.

These pots are lightweight and UV-resistant, having been tested at -30C and up to 60C, and the one we’ve got has certainly aged better than us – it definitely didn’t fade in the sun or crack in frost. Easy to store, these pots come in three different colours (ash, moss green and clay) that blend in well with most garden aesthetics. The company claims it will keep your plants in check “year-round”, but it’s best to play it safe and check every few weeks.

The set-up was simple – just fill the reservoir from the tap, chuck in your soil and flowers and away you go. If you’re leaving it outside, you can drill through the pot’s pilot drainage holes, otherwise, it’s perfectly waterproof and won’t ruin your carpet.

The pots come in four sizes, with prices having come down since last year (which is a nice change, given the economic climate) and now range from £16.99 to £40.

Compared with the other smart garden already mentioned in this round-up, the SG 9 is bigger and, therefore, more expensive, at around £156.76, or £196.76 for the pro version that comes with Bluetooth app control.

The app tells you when your water’s running out. It also automatically names your plants (it named one of our lettuces Leo), and starts a timer to tell you when they’re done – though this wasn’t obvious to us when we set it up, only to be pinged that Leo is doing well a week later. It’s also got a “plant catalogue” that gives growing tips and fun facts for each of the 20+ different plants C&G offers.

Set up is similar to the SG3 – it’s simple, but looks more like a basket because of the extendable double-ended overhead lighting system.

We decided to test the lighting system with this model and stuck it in a cupboard, so that any response by the seedlings would be entirely down to the unit’s lighting. We accidentally switched it off a few times while trying to connect to the app, but the instruction booklet soon had us back on track. We planted three pods of lettuce, three pods of Basil and three pods of yellow mini tomatoes and they were doing well more than a week later, despite their day of darkness.

The 40cm-cube cottage (also available in 30cm and 50cm) takes 7.5l of refill water and is one of the larger units on our list, so we left it outside the house with a citrus tree in it and forgot about it for a year. The (now indoor) tree is not dead at the time of writing, surviving winter and a trip in a removal van. We must have topped it up no more than four times all year.

As with the rest of the range we kept from last year, it’s well designed, discreet, and modern. The instructions lean heavily on the well-illustrated pictures, and all Lechuza pots come with nutrient grit (or “plant substrate”) that sits on top of the base tray to help growth, which seems to still be working fine a year on.

It’s got the same reservoir design too – a few cup holder-like bits in the base tray and a thermometer-like float meter that fits snugly down one of the corners via a special sleeve (though spiders really like setting up shop in that sleeve, as our arachnophobic housemate found out the one time she topped it up).

There’s also a little drainage port at the base for when rain overfills the pot, which, as far as we can recall, it didn’t (you can also save yourself some flap by tipping the excess water down the drain using the big open area at the top, if you’re feeling savvy). There’s a nice rattan weave effect casing that fits around the ensemble, but be careful to put the inner bucket, with its sturdy pop-up handles, in there before you fill the reservoir if you’re on your own, as it’s a bit heavy once filled, and without the sleeve it’s pretty ugly.