Forget Porgy and Bess, the words from the song Summertime by George Gershwin must have
actually been written for gardeners experiencing an August with unexpected
rainfall. The living really has been easy! It is such a treat to lazily linger
over my morning coffee rather than rush into the yard to haul and position
water hoses to administer desperately needed moisture for dying plants and
trees. If not for two negative consequences, this wet gardening
situation would be heavenly - the
devastating flooding of our south Louisiana friends, and the North Central Louisiana
Master Gardeners’ decision for today’s topic to be… Watering in the Drought
Conditions of Late Summer. Hmmmm….
I considered changing topics, but decided to adopt a
Zig Ziglar approach: “Expect the best, prepare for the worst.” Let’s hope we continue to get regular rain
showers through October, but let’s prepare to return to normal hot, dry
late-summer conditions. Here are a few practical watering tips to keep in mind:
1. Only water when it is needed. Use a
rain gauge. You can buy rain gauges in
most garden centers or find directions online for making one from a 2 liter
bottle. The optimum amount of rainfall is 1 inch per week. Record your rainfall
amounts on your calendar so you can keep up with it. Another way to determine
if it is time to water is sticking a screwdriver into the soil. If it easily
goes down about six inches, you don’t need to water. Don’t be afraid to turn
your sprinkler system off!!! Leaving your sprinkler on when you have been
getting plenty of rain (or worse, when it IS raining) is like leaving your car
blinkers on after your have completed a turn. Seriously, people are judging
you!
2. Water at the
correct time. Run sprinklers early in the morning. Watering at noon is a
waste due to evaporation, while watering at night promotes fungi and other
diseases. Set your sprinkler timers for
4:00-7:00 a.m. This will give the water
time to soak in before the sun comes up, yet keep the foliage from remaining
wet too long. Running sprinklers in the heat of the day or after dusk is a sure
sign that you didn’t pay attention to your elementary science lessons about
evaporation and fungus. Seriously, people are judging you!
3. Know how much
you’re watering. Measure your sprinkler’s output. Set tuna cans or other straight sided
containers in several different spots covered by your sprinkler. Determine how
long it takes to put out an inch of water. Shallow, frequent watering is
detrimental to your plants and grass because it encourages shallow roots. Weekly,
deep watering is your goal. But don’t overwater! Overwatering promotes weed
growth and diseases. If your summer water bills are $500, not only are you
overwatering, but you may be single-handedly sucking the Sparta Aquifer dry!!
And people are judging you!
4. Group bedding plants
according to their watering needs. All plants are not created equal when it
comes to water requirements! Verbena, salvia, and rosemary need less water than
cannas, elephant ears, and spiderwort. If these plants are mixed together in
one flower bed, it is not going to end well. Keep that in mind when planning
your landscape. But even Master Gardeners forget this when lured by fabulous
color combinations, so we’ll give you a pass on this one. No one will judge
you!
5. Random watering
thoughts. Here are some final thoughts on watering that didn’t fit into the
above categories but are still worth mentioning. When watering a tree, be sure you are watering
out around the drip line, the area directly beneath the edge of the tree’s
limbs. Grass goes dormant when affected
by drought and will bounce back to life with the next rain; don’t panic. Try
not to wet a plant’s leaves when watering; this promotes so many diseases. And last, invest in drip hoses; they are much
better than overhead watering.
Well, who knows what the next two months may bring! We still
have rain in the forecast so we will hope for the best, but we may be glad
we’ve prepared for the worst.
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