Garden Centre

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Garden weather and watering

Miniature roses soaking up the sun ...


Given that we were supposed to have ‘severe’ weather today, the most severe manifestation here in the south east of the UK was the risk of sunburn! It was still gloriously warm at 18:30, after a pretty well cloudless day, although there was heavy rain during the night. In fact it was a gardener’s delight as it was a perfect day to weed or plant with no need at all to water. But it isn’t going to continue that way all summer, so this is a good time to review our watering resolutions:

1. Adding plenty of organic matter such as compost and manure to the soil to improve water retention, plant health and soil structure. This is one of the most important steps in making your garden drought-tolerant and flood tolerant, as soil that contains organic matter soaks water down to the impermeable lower strata much faster than soil that is compacted – not a lot of people know that! Also, the healthier plants are, the better they cope with drought conditions, whether they are environmental or just because we’ve gone on holiday.

2. More water butts – we have one large one, and I want another to gather water from the shed – could be a task to complete on tomorrow’s bank holiday I reckon!

3. Recycling water from the bath. We shall be doing this properly this year, as we have a thing called a drought buster that sits in the (cooled) bathwater and pumps it down to the garden. Can’t wait to test it …

4. Removing weeds because they compete with other plants for water as well as space – I went out and hoed the garden today, finding a scary number of dandelions lurking in amongst the oriental poppies (the leaves are similar enough to be ignored if you don’t get up close) so I feel virtuous about this one right now.

5. Watering at the right time: gardens are best watered early in the morning, to reduce evaporation. Evening watering, though popular, leaves water on the plants overnight, which can encourage fungal diseases. This is somewhere one of us fails badly – himself is a glutton for wandering out at dusk and spraying the whole flowerbed with the hose: leaves, flowers and all, not at all good behaviour, but I don’t know how to break him of the habit – hide the hose perhaps?

Labels: garden watering resolutions, watering garden

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:01 PM

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