Many garden owners have always agreed to the fact that owning your garden at home despite the work put into it is always worth the effort. A garden is a place where one can cultivate plants and herbs that are beneficial for everyday use. Flowers and trees can also be planted to add to the beauty of the house and landscape.
For many, cultivating a garden has always been their dream but they never seem to succeed at it. This could be due to a number of reasons such as lack of adequate care of the plants, planting at the wrong time or season, and even watering the plants at the wrong time.
Watering plants is very important because like humans and animals, plants need water since it is very essential for their growth and for photosynthesis to take place. However, When people do not understand the importance of when and how to water, the plants suffer for their lack of knowledge and keep dying. To ensure great benefits from your garden, leaning and understanding when and how to water is of very great importance.
The Best Time to Water Garden
As said earlier, watering the garden is very important to maintain a fresh and lush looking garden and most especially during hot weather, however, when the garden is watered at the wrong time of the day, it usually leads to both water wastage as well as dehydration of grass and one not gaining anything at the end of the day. Therefore, the best time to water a garden is when the day is cool and the winds are very light. The grass type and characteristics of. Other crops or plants planted in the garden and the soil also play a major role in the watering process.
Watering The Garden In The Daytime
Watering in the very early hours of the morning or at the break of dawn usually between 5 am to 9 am is the best time of the day to water a garden. This is because the air temperatures are low and dew is still available. Also, the winds are still calm and will not evaporate the water quickly, making it have sufficient time to go deep into the roots. Also, the stomata which are tiny openings on the leaves will not be able to allow transpiration to take away the water by that time since the winds are still minimal. Most gardens benefit from watering two to three times per week and this can be achieved if the garden is either watered when the days are cooler or when the full sun is not out yet.
Watering as early as possible is important in order to allow the plants to dry up earlier to prevent fungal growth on wet plants which could lead to diseased conditions.
Disadvantage Of Watering Gardens By Midday
Gardens should never be watered in the middle of the day or even when it is close to midday because by that time, the sun will be fully out and also when there is a high amount of sunlight and water is found on the plant or in the soil surrounding it, the evaporation rate is usually very high. Watering by this time of the day is usually futile and a waste of time, energy, and water resources since the majority of the water will not get into the soil or penetrate deep into the soil due to evaporation. Aside from rapid evaporation, strong winds at midday may cause uneven water dispersal. Strong winds might spread the water onto sidewalks, driveways, or streets.
Danger Of Watering Gardens Late At Night
Although it is true that watering gardens at night or the late hours of the evening guarantees that there is no more heavy sunlight, and the roots of the plants will be able to absorb a lot of water since the water can penetrate deep into the soil as evaporation rates have been reduced, there is still the problem of some or all the plants remaining damp throughout the night exposing them to high risk and possibility of being attacked by diseases caused by fungi usually since the temperature keeps dropping at this time of the day and the water may even remain stagnant.
Problems Of Watering Gardens At The Wrong Time
Depending on the kind of plants though, some plants in the garden cannot survive a day without being watered while others can manage to survive long periods of dry weather conditions with very minimal amounts of water, although this is not healthy for them. Examples of such are cool-season vegetables such as kale which have the ability to adapt to long periods of dry weather and will only grow dormant for up to six weeks, and this is just a natural survival mechanism for the grass. The leaves will turn color brown, but the garden remains alive. But if it goes beyond six weeks, you face the risk of your garden dying. But whatever the case, it is always still advisable to water a garden regularly.
When a given area begins to experience strong winds and high or extreme temperatures ranging as high as the high 90s and over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for a long time, watering the garden at least three times a week is best while at the same time ensuring that the time of watering is the correct one to get optimal results. The water must penetrate and soak the soil as deep as 6 to 8 inches minimally. When gardens are watered almost every day in the hot weather, it makes the root system of the plants weak and shallow making them dry out fast.
Therefore, less frequent but deep watering is preferable because it encourages grassroots to develop and run strong systems underneath the soil. This enables your garden especially the grasses planted there to be more robust and disease resistant.
That means spending a full thirty seconds or more on each area, rather than just spraying the garden down quickly. Also remember to be observant and careful about overwatering the plants, because plants that are getting too much water are just as likely to die like plants that get too little water. Make sure you’re watering your plants at the correct frequency, and try not to overdo it.