Water Well and Wisely

 

            It is difficult to waste water by irrigating.  Water goes into the air, the ground or plants.  It evaporates into the air and can make clouds and rain, either in the area in which it is used or somewhere downwind and often uphill where it rains more easily, recharging creeks and rivers.  In the ground, it recharges the water table and often runs into rivers and creeks.  Or it goes into the plants and from there, into the air by transpiration if it isn’t used to build the plant. 

            But it is waste to consistently overwater.  Overwatering is hard on most plants.  If the soil is overfilled with water, it can rot roots.  Overwatering has caused landslides. 

Sodden lawns breed crane fly larvae who eat grass roots and cause brown patches.  This is often a result of poor lawn construction.  Putting fine clay sod on top of coarse soil without mixing the soil between the layers can cause a “perched” water table because coarse soil has less surface area than fine soil and passed water more slowly.  I have seen many sloped sod lawns that stay soaked from watering too often. Sloped clay can be watered several times in a night to get deep enough, then let it dry for a week.

Lawns and most plants don’t need to be watered more than once a week, about an inch per sprinkler position, regardless of how hot the weather is.  Find out how long it takes to put down an inch by putting a can or water gauge half-way between the sprinkler and the edge of its throw.  High heat shuts down photosynthesis in many plants.  Plants don’t grow their roots any deeper than they have to, so their roots will stay near the surface if the soil beneath is too wet.  A wet surface brings up weed seeds, while allowing the surface to dry out keeps most seeds from growing.

Frequent, shallow watering is just as hard on plants as overwatering; indeed, both cause wilting.  Roots cannot grow deep because the water doesn’t make it that far, and the soil dries fast.  Watering with soaker hoses is often shallow; so is watering by hand-held hose.  Sprinklers and timers work better.

My 0.23 acre yard is watered by moving hoses and sprinklers to the edge of previous watered spots, so it is really double-watered, as sprinklers never water evenly and this evens out the watering.  Automatic sprinklers systems are built to water from one sprinkler to the next, which does the same thing.

I was given a barberry bush for my June birthday once and planted it in a small bed.  The soil was dry to more than a shovel-depth, but the plants around the hole were happy.  That is what weekly deep watering can do.

7-5-2021, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener             541-955-9040             rycke@gardener.com