Garden Care
Care begins the day your garden is planted. Water…This is the most important need of your garden including containers and window boxes. Your plants will not live without water. Watering is basically a simple thing. Look at your plants. Do they look limp, wilted? They may need water. Feel the soil a few inches down. If there’s mulch, pull back the mulch to get to the soil If it feels dry, water the plant. If it feels moist, don’t water until it feels dry. You may have heavy soil which retains water. In this case if your plants are wilted they may have too much water. Plants need the water in the root area. While a nice shower on the leaves might cool the plant, for sustenance the water must go to the soil and roots.
New trees and shrubs may have root balls that are considerably larger than the plant itself. The best way to water these for the first few weeks is to put a hose at the base of the plant on a slow drip so that water sinks in and doesn’t run off. Move the hose around the base if needed to moisten the entire root area. Then move on to the next plant with the same process. For sizable trees you may want to leave the water dripping overnight.
Generally, established plants need an inch of water a week delivered via rain or you. Place a pot or pan in your garden and see how long it takes for a sprinkler (or whatever your watering system is) to deliver 1″ of water. Newer plantings need to be watered more often until they become established. Apply enough water to thoroughly moisten the root area of new plants.
Believe me when I say it is worth it to invest in a good (not cheap) hose, nozzle and/or sprinkler. A rubber hose is best but some hoses of artificial material are acceptable if they remain pliable in cooler weather. A nozzle should have multiple settings. The strongest is for washing the walk, not watering plants. A sprinkler with multiple settings to vary the range covered makes it easy to water a variety of spaces. Personally I really like Gardena Comfort Aquazoom, which you can see on line.
How much and how often to water can be effected by a number of factors. Clay soils hold water longer than sandy soils. Nearer the lake soils tend to be sandy but as you move west they become more clay. Your plants will dry out faster in the sun, in warmer temperatures, and in the wind. Plants under trees need more frequent watering as they are competing with the tree for moisture.
It sounds complex but you’ll quickly learn the characteristics of your own garden. After it’s established you can be more relaxed but for the first three or four weeks until the roots of new plants begin to knit into the surrounding soil, correct watering is critical.
Weeds…these like all your plants need light and water to grow. Mulch will help to keep the weeds down and the soil from drying out. Weeds are easy to pull out when they’re young so keep an eye out for things that weren’t planted and pluck them out making sure to get the roots. Once your plants get larger they will shade more of the soil and weed problems will diminish.
Other maintenance will improve the appearance of your garden. From time to time, remove any dead flowers, stems, leaves or branches from the plants. If you are interested in learning more about this you may want to purchase some garden books. Or speak to us about our maintenance service. We recommend that at least for the first year you hire us to tend your garden. Generally every six weeks or so is often enough during the growing season as well as a spring and fall clean up.