As long as you water early in the day, the water you give your plants can actually be protective against nighttime freezes. Watering plants and near freezing temperatures send many gardeners into fits, worrying that the newly wet soil will freeze and injure roots. Roots are prone to drying in the winter, causing permanent damage to perennials. Although your plants are dormant, they’re not dead during dormancy and still have some basic metabolic functions that must be driven with water collected from the soil. If your location isn’t prone to heavy snow or is prone to drying winds, supplemental winter watering is vital. Watering plants in winter is a necessary chore for most gardens. In many places, winter watering is a good idea, especially if you have young plants that are just establishing themselves in your garden. And get help if needed.įor more information about heat-related illness, visit the CDC’s heat stress page.When the weather outside is frightfully cold and snow and ice have replaced bugs and grass, many gardeners wonder if they should continue to water their plants. Know the signs of heat stress: headache, nausea, dizziness, weakness, irritability, thirst, heavy sweating, etc. Make sure to take breaks and drink plenty of water as you garden. Learn more about assessing your site and resources for choosing suitable plants. Perhaps you have a low spot that you thought would make a good rain garden, but one side of it has much sandier soil than the rest causing it to drain more quickly. If certain types of plants are thriving, consider removing plants that are not doing well and replacing them with plants that are.Īs you do so, investigate the soil in the area. Take a look at your garden: are there plants that are substantially more wilted than others? or plants that you’re watering every single day to keep alive? Perhaps that particular plant is not well suited to your landscape or that particular spot. Weed, weed, weed!ĭroughts offer us insight into plants that may not be quite right for our landscapes. This limits the likelihood of infection as the plants heal the wounds left by pruning.Īfter pruning, give your plants plenty of water, applied directly to the roots. Only prune when there is no rain in the forecast and humidity is low. Pruning is another stressor so, if possible, try to wait until conditions have cooled slightly to prune your plants. However, keep in mind that when it’s extremely hot outside, your plants are stressed. June is a great time to prune your tomatoes and certain other plants like lilacs. Multiply that by the number of gallons needed to figure out how long you should leave the hose on.įind out more about watering wisely during drought and other challenging conditions. If you’re watering with a hose, fill a container with a known volume (like a gallon of milk or a 5-gallon bucket) and calculate how long it takes. In a 10x10-foot garden, this would mean giving your plants 8 to 9 gallons of water each day. This looks like:ĭuring extremely hot weather (daytime temperatures above 90F and nighttime temperatures above 70F), try to water daily or every other day. The average vegetable garden needs about 1 inch of rain per week. Wait to prune tomatoes until a heatwave passes so they are less stressed. If you need to use sprinklers, use sprinklers that deposit water low to the ground rather than spraying high into the air to minimize evaporation.Watering by hand is also quite effective water as close to the soil surface as possible. Drip irrigation is ideal because it deposits water directly at the soil surface and can be targeted.This allows the soil and your plants to absorb more water because in the heat of the day there is more evaporation occurring at the soil surface. Water your plants in the morning as early as possible.In many communities, this looks like only watering on certain days of the week according to the side of the street you live on or even/odd addresses. Parts of Minnesota are experiencing drought conditions and cities have begun to instate watering restrictions, so make sure to check on your local ordinances. What does this mean for how we manage our gardens? Water wisely We’ve just experienced a couple of weeks of very warm temperatures, and meteorologists are predicting that we’ll continue to see above-average temperatures this summer. Drip irrigation releases water directly at the soil surface near plant roots.
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