« Bring Your Wood Back to Full Luster | Main | Pressure Washing »

July 26, 2005

Scheduling your Irrigation in Hot Weather

As summer's heat hits throughout the nation, here are a few tips for making sure your plants endure the heat.

If you are watering by hand, especially with plants in pots, make sure to water frequently. Pots will dry out faster than in ground plantings. For sensitive soft stemmed plants, watering twice per day may be required in extreme heat. If you can move potted plants to protected or shaded areas this will help.

When setting your automatic irrigation controller keep in mind a few things:

1- Up the amount of water scheduled during hot periods
This can be done two ways- by either increasing the duration of the watering, or by increasing the frequency of the watering. If you lawn is on for 10 minutes normally, maybe up it to 15 minutes, or alternatively split it into two start times, one in the morning and one in the afternoon or evening for 6-7 minutes. Splitting watering into two cycles can improve water absorption into the soil, resulting in less run off and more effective watering.

2- Remember to check your settings
Observation is the key to watering. Once you make changes, make sure to keep an eye on things. It may need a bit more or less water depending on the circumstances. If you have upped the watering time for a hot period, remember to adjust it back down if cooler temperatures return.

Remember if you make changes to an automatic controller to set it back to Run or Automatic if required; a failure to do so will prevent the new settings from running, compounding the problem.

3- Probe the soil
A good way to check to see if plants are getting enough water is to probe the soil, brushing back any mulch around the plant and feeling a couple inches into the soil around the plant. The soil should be damp but not sopping wet. Remember that in situations with clay soils, that these typically have a greater water holding capacity and require less watering time. Another methodology for checking soil moisture is to buy a soil moisture probe.

Find more information:
Be Water Wise
East Bay MUD Newsletters

Posted by Michael O'Connell at July 26, 2005 11:40 PM

Comments

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


Remember me?