Gardening Basics: Simply Put – Summer Watering Tips

By Larry Hurley, Perennial Plants Buyer

Summer is finally here! I say “finally” because it’s felt like August for a couple of weeks now.

Make sure to provide water to your gardens, containers, and plantings around the house.

Here are my recommendations:

1) Lawns: Don’t worry about the lawn. Our lawn grasses will tolerate drought by going dormant (turning brown). When it rains, they will green up again. If you feel compelled to water the lawn, then provide an inch of water a week, preferably at one watering over a period of a couple of hours. This is to provide a thorough watering without a lot of run off. Frequent light watering result in shallow rooting. Infrequent deep watering is better.

2) Hanging Baskets: Hanging baskets in the sun are not the happiest of campers right now. You may find that it’s difficult to water frequently enough to keep them looking good. Move them to an area with afternoon shade, or consider perhaps taking them down and planting the plants into a larger on-the-ground container, or even into the ground.

3) Containers: Check daily, water as needed. If the soil feels moist, let it go a day. I have some ceramic containers in the shade that only need water once a week, even in this heat. Terra cotta containers in full sun may need daily watering. If a pot (or basket) gets very dry, the soil may shrink away from the side of the pot. When you water, the water runs down the side of the soil ball instead of penetrating the dry soil. That will call for repeated watering over a period of a couple of hours to get the soil wet enough to swell back to contact with the container. If it’s small enough, you can set it in a tub of water for an hour to rehydrate.

4) Newly Planted Perennials, Trees and Shrubs: check them daily. How frequently they need water depends on what you have planted, and where it has been planted. Plants in the shade may only need water every four or five days. Newly planted shrubs in the sun may need water every day or two for awhile. Remember that initially, all of the roots are in the soil ball that came with the plant. Even if the surrounding soil is moist, if the soil ball dries out, the plant wilts. As in the description above for containers, if the soil ball is dry, water may not penetrate it easily.

Wand

The absolutely best way to water is to use a water wand (a hollow pipe attached to the hose with a “breaker” on the end. A breaker is like the end of a watering can that breaks the water stream into many small gentle streams.) All professional garden center and nursery people use water wands. (Except for management, which thinks it has earned the right to spray plants with a thumb over the end of the hose once in awhile.)

The reason to use a wand is that it lets you get the water exactly where you need it—into the hanging basket, or at the base of the plant at the soil ball. While spritzing the foliage with water may make you feel good, it doesn’t do much for the plant. It absorbs water from the roots, not the leaves, so apply a gently, soaking stream of water to the soil ball area. Twenty seconds ought to do it for smaller plants.

5) Established plants: It’s a tricky call. Shallow rooted plants like azaleas must have regular watering in hot weather. A good soaking once a week should be enough. Personally, I have invested (tens of) thousands of dollars in my garden over the years, so I am going to water during dry spells.

Nelson POPPY Sprinkler

In this weather, if it hasn’t rained heavily for a week, I start up the sprinkler and water one piece of the garden very early each morning while it is still cool, over the course of a week, for about an hour to an hour and a half in each spot. Other horties will water by hand with a wand, selectively: say, all of the hostas, letting established trees fend for themselves.

Soaker Hose

Another tool in the aquatic arsenal is the soaker hose, which sort of oozes water out along the length of the hose; the advantage is not losing water to evaporation, a big problem with fine mist coming from a sprinkler in hot, dry air. These can be wound through established plantings, or are good for along the rows of vegetable gardens. I have used them and they work. I personally find it hard to monitor how much water I am using, and you may water a shrub while the hosta a foot away upslope is bone dry. So, let’s say they work well in specialized situations.

Rain Barrel

6) Gray Water, Rain Barrels, Eco-Stuff: Fine. If you have a small area to water that is easily watered by hand then save the water from the clothes washer, shower with a bucket, gather rain water in a rain barrel, and use it.

Every gallon helps; it’s a function of how big an area you need to water and how much time you have to do it. The rain barrel also helps reduce runoff during storms, so it has that additional benefit.

7) Behnke’s Sells Everything You Need for Watering: From the rain barrels, to watering cans and hoses, and water wands in numerous decorator colors. This is the season, now is the time.

Watering Cans

Garden Hoses

A spilt low down on a large camellia. Branches that leave the trunk at a sharp angle like this are prone to split.

Gardening Basics: Simply Put
Broken Limbs & Pruning Hints

When you walk through your yard or garden after the snow melts, you are likely to see damage to your shrubs from the snow load, especially on evergreen plants which hold more of the snow.

Branches may have torn completely off of the plant, or may be broken but still attached. Any obviously broken branches that are still attached should be removed from the plant. They should be cut back to undamaged wood on the larger branch to which they are attached, or back to the trunk. If the branch has fallen away completely leaving a stub, then the stub should be removed. Pruning of small branches is not difficult, but there is a “right way” to do it so that the wound heals more rapidly.

There are plenty of easily accessible brochures on the web about pruning, and the Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center has some videos. Here are some places to start: (from the University of Maryland; Purdue University and the University of Minnesota).

(Pay attention to the pruning technique near the end of the “large trees” video, especially shot of the branch collar. People tend to want to prune back flush to the trunk of the tree or shrub, but that is incorrect. The video shows the correct way.)

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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Creating a Houseplant Container Garden with Randy Best. Time: 1 p.m. Fee: $25.

Randy will explain what to keep in mind when combining houseplants to create a beautiful container garden, and then assist you as you put together your own.

(Fee includes all the supplies for a houseplant garden plus a $5 coupon.)

Location: Behnke’s Beltsville Garden Center. Participants must register and pay in advance by calling (301) 937-1100, or stopping by the Beltsville store. Snow date: Saturday, February 27

For answers to your gardening questions, try HGIC, more properly known as the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center.

The Cooperative Extension Service was born from the land grant college system, as a way for universities to get information on nutrition, gardening and home economics to small town and rural families and the latest scientific agricultural information to teachers, farmers and nursery owners. Over the years, Extension has been invaluable as a source of information through brochures and classes, and most recently, through the internet.

The Home and Garden Information Center was developed to offer an efficient way of answering questions from an increasingly urban population. HGIC staff, all of whom are Certified Professional Horticulturists, answer questions from gardeners via telephone and email. The website is excellent, with many free online publications, others that may be ordered, ( including the newly updated Master Gardener Handbook), and self-led discovery of plant/pest problems under ‘plant diagnostics’.

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Behnkes Banks on ‘Shade Aristocrats’
The large, coarse leaves of most hostas tend to break up the monotony found in many landscape designs.

With various sizes, colors, light requirements, foliage shapes and textures, it is possible to fit an easy-to-grow hosta into almost any landscape situation.

When to Plant
Hostas can be planted in this area from March through November.

Where to Plant
Plant hostas where the proper shade conditions exist. Blues lose their color in sun, so they look their best with at least 50% shade. Golds tolerate sun quite well but should be shaded from the mid-day sun. Most hostas prefer dappled shade throughout the day. The soil should drain well and still be able to retain moisture.

How to Plant
Dig bed for hostas 12 to 18 inches deep. Make a soil mixture of one third each existing soil, fine pine bark and organic matter such as peat moss, dehydrated manure or garden compost. Loosen root system using a garden cultivator and set plant in bed so top of root ball is even with or slightly higher than garden soil level. A handful of an organic fertilizer such as Plant-tone may be added to the backfill. Firm the plant in and water slowly and thoroughly until the water puddles around the plant. When water has soaked in , a mulch of shredded hardwood or pine bark 1 to 2 inches deep should be applied.

Long Term Care
Water is the most important requirement for hostas, especially the first year or two after planting. We suggest 3 to 5 gallons per week per plant if there is not sufficient rainfall. After the first 2 years, hostas have developed good root systems, and can withstand considerable drought. Hostas can thrive amazingly well with no further fertilizer, but an occasional side dressing of slow-release organic fertilizer in midsummer proves to be quite rewarding. In autumn, after foliage has died from frosts, the leaves should be trimmed off.

Trouble Shooting
The main problem with hostas is slugs and snails. These pests prefer moist, dark areas, feeding mostly on the soft, new, immature growth. Sanitation and a proper watering program are quite effective in controlling them.

Remove debris that provides hiding places and water only in the morning so plants are dry at sunset. Slug bait is also very effective in providing control. Manufacturers’ instructions and recommendations should always be followed with these products. Many of the new varieties of hostas are being bred for more pest resistance. Also, it’s nice to know that the older a plant gets, the more pest resistant it becomes.

Now that you know how to plant and maintain your hostas, sit back and watch them grow.