The
present highly unusual weather here in Prince George's County could be quietly
having dramatic impacts on your landscape. It is all too easy to think of the
weather only in terms of our personal well being - how wonderful this sunny
early summer feels to us and how fortunate we feel not to have had drifts of
snow and ice, as well as almost no freezing temperatures to be concerned about.
The flowers of spring are coming and in many cases have gone and we are drawn
to the garden and to the grandee centers filled with an urge to buy and plant.
This amazing
spring follows and unusually wet and cool summer last year, and many of us may
have forgotten the high art off watering the garden, especially newly planted
landscapes. The lack of significant rainfall is beginning to worry me, and if
you have new plantings it should be of maximum concern to you too. If you have
reseeded your lawn, never a good idea for spring in normal years, this year you
MUST be irrigating/watering: working towards one inch of water on the whole lawn
a week and more frequent daily, light watering of the seeded areas until the
grass is up at least an inch. Don't forget to cut your lawn high now at least
2.5 inches - three inches being better - to help the turf stay vigorous and
healthy in the early heat and rain deficit. And some watering of vegetable
gardens newly seeded or planted is warranted lest your work be for naught. This
even applies to summer flowers if you are sneaking them in early in anticipation
of no more frosts or freezes.
And the established
plantings and landscape especially woodland planting of hostas, azaleas etc may
begin to want for water. Low humidity and high temperatures may be comfortable
for us, but your garden plants are going to begin to wilt and suffer if you cannot
find the time to help them out with a little artificial rainfall - or better
yet water from your rain barrels delivered through your drip irrigation system
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