Watering plants: when to drench.

 I was talking about how to water new planting, in a period of hot dry weather, the other day and, in very much the same vein, a different Client had a question for me this week about watering, which was quite interesting: she said “All the books say,” (I love it when people start a sentence this way) “... that it's better to do a good drenching once or twice a week, rather than little and often, but what exactly IS a good drenching?”

 

This is absolutely true: if you just give your plants a quick sprinkle every day, you are only wetting the top half-inch or so of the soil, so the plants only need shallow roots in order to get it. Then, the minute it gets hot, or the day you forget to water, or go away for the weekend, they wilt, because they don't have any deeper roots.

By drenching once or twice a week, we persuade our plants that it's better to grow those nice deep roots, which gives them stability from wind and from being knocked over by passers-by, and gives them the ability to seek out the water deeper in the ground.

So we had a nice discussion about watering plants in the garden - I explained that ....

 

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