Gardening
The Art of Watering

The following is some general guidelines in the art of watering your lawn and garden:
1.     When buying plants, always find out how much water it will need when you get it home and planted. Ask someone at your local nursery or consult a good garden book such as Sunset.

2.     MOST (but not all) plants like to remain moist, not soaking wet and not dried out, in a well draining location.  This means you might have to do some amending around the hole that you are planting in. Some exceptions to that rule are bouganvillea, sage, and many trees.

3.     MOST (but not all) plants and trees like to be consistantly deep watered.  If some of your bigger shrubs and trees are getting sprinkled on the first few inches of soil every day or every other day, this may be too much surface water too often. Roots will go where the water is so to establish strong plants with deep root structures, plants should be watered deeper and less often. One exception is the avocado tree which likes to be sprinkled more often.

4.     A good watering regiment is dependent on the type of soil you have. Find out what kind you have and water accordingly.  Both clay and sandy soils need to be amended for proper drainage. In clay soils, water cannot drain well so sand, gypsum, organic matter, and/or clay soil conditioner need to be added. In sandy soils, water and fertilizers drain too fast so organic matter and/or peat moss and other amendments need to be added.   Note: It takes .8 inches of water 1 foot deep in sandy soils and 2.4 inches of water to get 1 foot deep in clay soils.

5.     Lawns usually require 1 1/2-2 inches per week. If you don't know how much you are watering, set pie tins out in various places on your lawn and water like you normally would.  If it is about 1/2 inch then you should be watering 3 or 4 times a week.

6.     When choosing plants for an area of your garden, you should take in to consideration the water needs of each plant. Don't put plants that need little water next to plants that need a lot of water.

7.     If there is little rainfall in your area, plants and trees need to be leached every two years. Leaching is the addition of sufficient water to a container or the ground to flush out salts caused by over fertilization and minerals in the water.

-Bettie, July 2000

Past Gardening Articles

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