Caring For Your Plants In A Drought

This past year in our state was the hottest and driest on record for all-time

. It was quite a challenge trying to keep all of our yard plants healthy and watered the entire summer months. Fortunately, we have a water well so the water in our case is almost free. The only cost of course would be the expense of electricity which runs the pump. I estimated that are total plant watering cost due to the pump, even when it runs almost day and night in the hot summer months, is only about two dollars per day. In cities, where people have to purchase their water by the gallon via a water meter, some of those bills in the hot summer months in the many hundreds of dollars. I have even heard accounts of people's bills being as high as $1000 simply because they wanted to keep their lawns and plants alive and healthy.

One method I used the entire summer to water our larger plants such as fruit trees and shrubs was to use the soaking method. Instead of placing a sprinkler by each tree, I would lay several hoses around several trees at one time and turn them all on at a very small trickle. I would leave these run for sometimes 24 hours. This will ensure a very deep soaking which the plants so desperately need in these hot summer months. If you simply place a sprinkler around the tree in the summertime, especially when the wind is blowing, you will lose my of the water evaporation. Also, it is far healthier for the plant to have a very deep soaking around the roots instead of simply watering near the surface.

I invested in several extra lengths of hose and also some fittings which allowed me to fasten them altogether and run them from one faucet. I also, I installed fittings on the hoses which allowed me to close off the flow of water so that only a small trickle would be placed upon each tree. If the tree was rather large, I would move the hose around each tree so that the roots could be watered in all directions and not just in one spot. This ensures that all the roots if the proper watering amounts on a weekly basis. In most cases, even in the hottest months, all that is required to maintain healthy plants is to give them a good watering at least once per week. In fact, many plants do not like to remain wet for longer than a few days at a time. In most cases plants prefer to be heavily water and allowed to dry out. This mimics nature's way of watering in most cases.

In fact, I heard on the radio while listening to a plant show that many people's plants were dying in the drought simply because they were being watered too much. This is a definite case of too much of a good thing. When watered too much the roots of plants tend to suffocate from lack of oxygen. Too much water around the plants roots too much of the time will keep the require oxygen from being absorbed into the roots. Be careful and definitely do not water your plants too much even in the hottest of summer months.

by: Steve Weber

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