The heat of summer is coming soon and the rains are going to be stingy at best though the season. Many municipalities give residents watering restrictions in an effort to keep costs down and to maintain a good water supply. While this may seem to make watering your plants a daunting task there are several things you can do to make your garden more water-wise!
Let’s take a look at 5 Ways to Make your garden a Waterwise Garden!
- Water deeply and water less often. Hopefully you’ve heard this before! If not here’s why: when you water deeply you encourage roots to grow deeper and the water stays down in the soil longer (slower evaporation). Deeper roots make the plants better able to find water in the soil when rains may be scarce.
- Mulch, mulch, mulch! Mulch is a great way to keep the soil temperature down and to retain moisture in the ground. A good two inch layer of mulch will significantly reduce your watering needs. It also introduces organic matter into the soil as the mulch breaks down which helps your soil in the longrun!
- Keep your garden weeded! Weeds need water too so the fewer weeds you have the more water is available for your plants. Weeds tend to be aggressive and ruthless when it comes to growing and will out compete many desirable plants in a plant to plant matchup. The gardener here needs to jump into the ring and tag team against the weeds!
Use rain collection devices! Yes I’m talking rainbarrels! Rainbarrels are neat way to add a little extra water to your supply. Of course it requires that you receive some rain. If you receive even a small amount of rain to collect off your roof you can fill a significant portion of your rainbarrel. Save the rain barrel usage for those dry days in between rains. I don’t use my rainbarrel for anything other than ornamentals due to possible contaminants from the asphalt shingle roof, but I have plenty of ornamentals that are aided by a little supplemental watering! (my rainbarrel on Amazon)
- Use natives! Native plants are well adapted to your area and can survive those drought periods of summer without much help from the gardener. They have developed over time to adapt to the local weather conditions and have a great tolerance for the extremes in their native zones.
Hopefully this list is helpful for you! Here are more Friday Five posts all about gardening for your reading pleasure.
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Gosh what a pretty picture of the rainbarrel with the vine. Awesome! I've been using rainwater a lot this year but it is not enough. We are SO dry. Hope you and family are all doing well this summer. I see you are staying busy busy busy!