Tag: irrigation

Water Wise Gardening: Conserving and Irrigating Responsibly

While we can’t ever control or even predict the weather, in most places it is important to have a plan on how to deliver water to our home gardens during the hot, dry months of the summer.  Aside from reducing water need through some good management practices, delivering water in an efficient and sustainable way is important when planning and planting our home gardens. 

When there is scarcity, it is necessary to conserve. Several years I got to see scarcity in person on a sustainable agriculture tour of New Mexico. … Continue reading this article “Water Wise Gardening: Conserving and Irrigating Responsibly”

Rain barrels

A few weeks ago one of our readers, landscape architect Owen Dell, sent me a link to his blog where he takes on rain barrels. It’s a great analysis of the (im)practicalities of rain barrels and it got me to wondering how many of our readers (and my GP colleagues) use these as supplemental sources of irrigation water?

I have two in our back yard that were made from old olive oil containers retrofitted for collecting and dispensing water.… Continue reading this article “Rain barrels”

Keep Calm and Carry On: Part II

Recently I posted that many of the “rules” that gardeners cling to so tightly regarding tree planting (i.e., dig the planting hole 3 times the width of the root ball, always amend the backfill with organic matter) are probably better considered ‘suggestions’ than rules.  While these practices won’t hurt, there are much better ways to spend time and effort to ensure long-term survival when planting a tree.  Here are the top four:

Irrigate.  No matter how much time and effort goes into the ‘perfect’ planting hole; for most parts of the country, trees that are not irrigated after planting are doomed.  … Continue reading this article “Keep Calm and Carry On: Part II”

Good to the last drop

As part of our discussion of the relative merits of fall planting, Linda mentioned an article in Arboriculture and Urban Forestry that suggests that frequent, light irrigation might be better for landscape trees then the usual recommendation of infrequent soakings.  While I will withhold final judgment until I see the article (I did a scan of the last two year’s table of contents for A&UF but missed the article in question), here’s my rational for following the standard recommendation.… Continue reading this article “Good to the last drop”

Killing with Kindness

With the advent of Spring comes a myriad of calls on distressed plants from homeowners, nurseries and landscapers.  One of our better tree service companies (I’ll call the owner/operator ‘Mark’ to protect his clients’ identities) in southeastern Michigan called with a series of problems this spring so I decided to take drive over and get a first hand look. We looked at several problems on plants ranging from trees to ground covers but there soon emerged an consistent thread: overwatering. … Continue reading this article “Killing with Kindness”

Another look at TreeGators

Following up on Linda’s earlier comments about potential problems with TreeGators, my summer interns and I did a random spot check of about 150 TreeGators currently in use on the MSU campus.  As background, MSU Landscape Services plants about 1,200 trees and shrubs each year.  All newly-planted trees which are not on an automatic irrigation system are fitted with one or two TreeGators, which are filled from a water wagon every week or every two weeks, depending on weather.  … Continue reading this article “Another look at TreeGators”