Watering Your Garden or Landscaping

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Ever wonder why your plants are looking a little droopy or like they might be diseased? It could be that you’re overwatering, not watering them enough or even wetting them down at the wrong time of the day.

A few tips about the best way to water your plants:

Pay attention to the root area. Don’t just douse water on the plant itself or just on the topsoil. The root is what needs the water so make sure the water makes it that far, especially when watering newly developing shrubs.

Natural rainfall certain will play a role in your watering choices but rarely provides enough watering for newly developing plants especially larger trees & shrubs with larger root balls. Also various plants may be more sensitive to either drying or wetter conditions do adjusting to each is sometimes needed.

Watering is suggested to be performed in the morning or early evenings with mornings being emphasized as best. Some diseases, that particular plants may be prone too, can be created by late evening watering keeping plant foliage wet all night.

When watering landscaping, be thorough and don’t skimp. Your lawn and any annuals you may have concentrate their roots in the top six inches of soil, while it’s the top 12 inches for perennials, shrubs and trees.

Extra tip:

Heavier or more compact soils may require slower water applications for deep penetration to minimize surface runoff. On larger trees and shrubs, one can also place a very slow running trickle from hose at the base of the root ball to emphasize water penetration.

Other things to keep in mind, when watering gardens including keep plants evenly moist and in flower beds, watering once or twice a week is usually enough. It’s also better to water more infrequently but with plenty of water than too little water too often.

Avoid waterlogging any plant as it suppresses air “oxygen” within the root zone which is crucial for many plants for proper root development. Various soils have different water holding capacities so learning your conditions will allow you to customize your landscape watering needs.

Finally, understand that there’s no bad method of watering but certainly some that are more functional and efficient than others. Slower and deeper watering focused on the immediate root zone of the plant is typically better usually managed by hand watering by a hose or watering can. Sprinklers are easy and take little time investment but share water over very large areas often not focused to the direct root zone. It takes a lot of sprinkling to effectively water deep so often is not very effective other than larger flower beds or lawns where larger spaces and shallower root zones are present.

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