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| Drought (Photo credit: Bert Kaufmann) |
Your garden is beautiful. Your years
of hard work has gotten your garden to where you want it, but at some
point in time, every gardener must face the realities of drought.
For your plants to survive a drought,
they must be healthy, planted in good soil and have well established
roots. Well established trees and bushes two years or older can go
without water for an extended period of time. Because pruning and
fertilizing increases the need for water it is best not to prune or
fertilize during this period.
Since every gardener would hate to see
their garden whither slowly to nothing, they must identify which
plants are worth saving. In light of this, enjoy your annuals while
you can because watering these would just be a waste of limited
resources. Although there are some annuals that do hold up well in a
drought, such as celosia, salvia, vinca and lantana to name a few.
To help annuals survive longer, water one last time and laying down a
heavy layer of mulch this might help over a short drought period.
Another way would be to dig up your annuals and put in pots that
could easily be watered.
Every gardener has a few prized
perennials and would do almost anything to save them. Most
perennials can survive on an inch of water weekly. Those perennials
with shallow roots would benefit with a layer of mulch and at least
an inch of water every couple weeks. Of course, if your area is
known to go into drought conditions; more than likely you have
planted drought tolerant perennials that will survive with little or
no water for extended periods of time.
Other ways to counter drought periods
is using a drip watering system or soaker hoses which deliver water
to the root system of the plants in a more direct way. Plus water is
not lost into the air.
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