🖐🏼 5 Tips for WATERING YOUR GARDEN! :: Building the Foundation of a Successful Garden

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#wateringtips, #provenwinners, #wateringplants

Hi everyone Janie here from dig plant water repeat welcome or welcome back to my garden this is video number two in the building the foundations of a successful garden series with Proven Winners Proven Winners monthly newsletter Winners Circle has decided to come out with five months of

Educational uh how do I say Focus monthly Focus that we can learn about as gardeners during our downtime we’re not doing much in the garden there’s not much planting going on things have kind kind of gotten a little quiet so we’re taking this downtime and we’re really focusing on

Education and learning how to build up the foundation for a successful garden so next year when we go out and we get all our beautiful plants and we plant them in the garden everything is is ready to go to support those plants and to allow you or me to have the most

Successful garden we can next year so in November we focused on soil understanding your soil how to improve your soil maintaining your soil health and more so make sure you check out that video if you missed it last month in November it is in the building the foundations of a successful garden

Playlist this month we are going to be focusing on water so water plants are 90% water so just like soil this is a very important topic and if we don’t get our watering correct for plants we’re not going to have as a successful garden as we possibly could

Have just because plants rely on water so heavily and we can we can kind of mess it up either way we can overwater them or we can underwater them so understanding the amount of water that a plant needs understanding how to water them understanding how to conserve the

Water so that you’re not wasting a whole bunch of water all of these things are really important to having a successful garden so tip number one for water in your garden properly is understanding the water needs of your garden or of a specific plant so you need to know how

Much water a specific plant needs so you can know how much to water it or how often to turn on your drip irrigation system because it’s really easy to overwater or to underwater a plant and it’s probably the thing that gets us gardeners the most is watering

Questions is this plant thirsty or is it is something else wrong with it right so under understanding the water needs of your plant is really really important now Proven Winners makes it easy you can either look at the tag right if they have it written on the tag or you can go

To The Proven Winner’s website and look up your plant and down in the description it will say water category and then Proven Winners will tell us which water category they’ve put this plant in they have average water they have low water they have consistent water and then they have wet so let’s

Talk about which each one of these things mean so let’s start with the kind of middleof the road category and that is average so I would say average or sometimes you’ll see it written as regular and what this means is you want the watering to be pretty consistent and

You want to be pretty consistently moist but you do want to allow that plant to dry out so basically if it’s in a pot and you were to touch the top of the soil you would want it to feel dry before you watered it again and so this

Is what we kind of think of as average watering and depending on where you live it’s kind of hard to say exactly how often you’re going to need to water because some of us live in very hot climates and then the water’s going to evaporate really quickly some of us live

In very humid climates but basically you want to check the plant every 2 to 3 days and then once you’ve checked it and you can kind of get a a feel for how often you need to water with allowing it to dry out a little bit on top then you

Can understand how often you need to water water or turn on your drip irrigation system so the average watering plant is uh is pretty easy there are also a lot of plants that are categorized as average water needs and the reason why they’re categorized as average water needs is that they can

Withstand more wet feet more wet soil but they can also withstand more dry conditions and these are the best plants to have because if you ever mess up mess up if you ever miss a watering day or if if it rains unexpectedly right after you water the plant’s going to be fine the

Plant can handle a wide range of water conditions and these are my favorite plants next category we’re going to talk about is the consistent water category or sometimes it’s written as consistently moist and that is exactly what it means these plants like to have the soil around their root system

Consistently moist there always is a level of moisture in that soil so that nothing ever dries out so as opposed to the average water needs plants where you would touch the soil and it’s okay if it feels dry on the top of the soil these plants that’s not okay that’s kind of

Past the point of time and you want to make sure that you water it right away now consistently moist does not mean wet wet is the next category and wet means like dripping wet like the plant likes to be in moisture sometimes these are also called bog plants um these are

Plants that in nature we would find them in kind of lowline really wet areas maybe swampy areas that always have a pretty large amount of water in the soil so these plants are going to need a lot a lot of watering these plants also something to think about if you have a

Lawn if you have a lawn and you water that lawn a lot with overhead sprinklers sometimes the overhead sprinklers tend to go over into garden beds and a lot of plants can’t handle that consistent amount of water Lawns need water especially during the summer months almost every single day so sometimes we

Can’t plant plants in the area where there’s overspray on lawns but a wet plant a wet water need plant or a bog plant can handle that amount of water so even if you live in a dry area like I do sometimes there are certain areas in your garden specifically on the edge of

A lawn that a wet plant might Thrive now we’re going to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum for water category and we’re going to talk about low water needs plants or otherwise known as drought tolerant plants so drought tolerant plants are low water

Need plants are often due to adaptations in that plant’s physical nature physical character that makes them low water needs or drought tolerant and these plants have developed this over years of being in dry Aid climates kind of like where I live in Northern California sometimes there’s really waxy leaves

That don’t evaporate the water from inside the pl plant very often um sometimes they have really thick stems that can hold a lot of moisture in those stems and most of them have very expansive root systems that allow them to pull up the water from the surrounding soil very easily so these

Plants once they’re established you really only have to water them about once or twice a month uh depending on how much rainfall you get for me for drought tolerant plants I tend to water about once a week in the hot hot summer but we easily get in triple digits for

Weeks on end so you kind of just have to play with it but you have to know these plants like to dry out they need to dry out and they don’t need as much water as the average plant as you would think it’s actually pretty crazy how little

Water they do need now take this with a grain of salt or should I say don’t forget the fact that these plants when they are in cans or when they’re in pots they normally have that expansive root system to take up that extra water but when their root system is constrained to

The pot there’s nowhere for those roots to go and they can’t take up as much water as they could as if they were planted in the ground so if you have a plant say for instance a lavender a lavender if it’s planted in the ground it has a very expansive very shallow but

Very very expansive root system that can pull up the water that it needs that’s why a lavender is a low water needs plant a drought tolerant plant and you can actually very easily kill a lavender by watering it too much I know I’ve done it many many times but if you have a

Lavender that is actually in a pot those lavender Roots have not expanded out and that lavender suddenly needs more water than you might think because the roots don’t have the opportunity to take up the moisture that it needs so just kind of have that in the back of your mind if

You buy a plant from the garden center and it says drought tolerant or it says low water need plant just know that you’re still going to have to water that plant when it’s in the pot and even when you get it into the ground you’re going to have to water

That plant more than you think until its root system can expand out and then it can become a low water needs plant or a drought tolerant plant and like I said you can water it once or twice a month for me maybe you know once a week or

Once every other week tip number two for watering your garden properly is understanding the importance of watering deeply and in frequently now this is so very important for watering and that is because it is going to protect your plants in the long run so imagine that

You have a plant and imagine that you kind of sprinkle it with water from a watering can every single day you kind of just water it every single day what’s going to happen is the water is only going to go a couple inches into the soil and that plant is only going to

Develop its root system in the top couple inches because that’s where the water is so that’s fine if you’re consistent with watering watering the top couple inches of soil but say summer comes and say we have a drought or say we have triple digits for days on end that increased heat or increased

Temperature is going to cause that water in the first couple inches of soil to evaporate very quickly so that plant might end up showing signs of water stress or heat stress in just a couple hours after you finished watering it and that’s because you’ve been watering frequently and shallowly

Now compare that to another plant that you water deeply and infrequently what that’s going to do is that’s going to cause the plant to dive deep down follow the water and develop its root system deep down in the ground so then when we have a very hot day or we have a drought

Or you don’t make it home after work to water your plant that plant is going to be able to handle it because it has a very deep layer of soil to protect it from the burning hot sun or evaporation because of the hot temperatures so how do you water deeply and infrequently my

Favorite way to do this is drip irrigation I think drip irrigation is so incredibly important because of exactly what the name says it drips it takes the amount of water that normally you would be pouring on the plant or hosing on the plant and instead of it spreading kind

Of all around and some of it getting down into the ground it very slowly Drip by drip goes down into the ground and some people think that their drip irrigation system is not working properly because they only see a small amount of moisture on the surface of the

Soil but that actually means that your drip irrigation system is doing exactly what it’s meant to do it’s coming out so slowly that it’s dripping down into the ground it’s going deep and it’s allowing that plant’s roots to follow the water deep down into the ground so I love

Doing a drip irrigation system I love doing slow drip irrigation systems right having a lower gallon per hour emitter if you can and then I also love allowing for a soak cycle and so what this means is that you would turn on your drip irrigation and you would water it and

You would allow the water to come down into the soil and then you would turn it off or the system would turn it off and you would allow that soil to soak up all the water then you turn it on again in a couple minutes or a couple hours and

Then even more water can come down and it can get even deeper now by watering this way you need to water less frequently because if you water that way just as frequently as you did before you would be giving that plant too much water you want to water infrequently cuz

That’s going to force the roots to find that water deep down into the ground so then this plant this really strong robust plant that has really really deep roots when it’s a drought or when it’s 100 100° out it’s going to be okay cuz it’s used to not getting water that

Often and it’s used to finding Water Deep deep down in the ground tip number three for watering your garden properly is understanding the timing of your watering when during the day should you be watering and the best time to water your plants for most people is between

The hours of 4:00 a.m. and 6: a.m. so why do I say this that is because the sun is not up it is still cold but the sun is coming up soon so the purpose of watering early in the morning is that it’s still going to be cold enough the

Sun’s not going to be up and the water’s not going to evaporate immediately as soon as you water your plants so it’s going to give the water a chance to come down through the soil and and really soak in but knowing that the sun is

Going to come up in a couple hours and whatever water is left over say you have Sprinklers and it kind of gets some water on your leaves that water is going to dry up you don’t want that water to sit on the leaves of your plants or your

Plants because that is a breeding ground for mold mildew fungus all that nasty stuff that we want to avoid so if we watered at night if we watered say right before we went to bed there would be water sitting on our plants or sitting around the stems of our plants all night

Long the sun goes down it’s cold and there’s just this really moist environment there that can breed fungus or mildew if we water in the morning say our drip irrigation system goes off at 5:00 a.m. like mine does then I know that my plants are going to be able to

Absorb all the water that it needs and then once the sun comes up whatever moisture is going on is going to dry up and my plants are going to avoid any mold or mildew during the day so it’s just going to protect the plants yet still allow the plants to get the water

It needs next tip for watering your garden properly is understanding water conservation strategies now this is important for conserving water for the environment of course our plants our Gardens our l Lawns take a ton of water and that costs a lot of money and you know we want to conserve as much water

As we can so we’re not wasting the amount of water that we’re using but water conservation strategies are also important for the health of our plants if we don’t take these strategies these plants are going to be relying on us to water it all the time so if something

Happens like a drought like hot weather or you go on vacation and whoever’s watching your garden forgets to water your plants the plants that have these water con conservation strategies implemented are going to be able to handle those times a lot better than the plants that don’t so what are some water

Conservation strategies well some of them I’ve already talked about watering deeply and infrequently so that that plant can develop a really good root system that is really important that is key watering early in the morning so that that plant has plenty of time to absorb all the water it needs before the

Hot sun or hot temperature evaporates that water also will help conserve water the third tip for water conservation is mulch mulch mulch now mulch I say mulch mulch mulch because it’s that important mulch is so important not only to maintain the moisture level in the soil

But for many other reasons it also keeps the temperature of our soil down that layer of mulch on top of our soil makes sure that that soil doesn’t heat up so fast fast then it evaporates the water so fast and it’s almost like you didn’t even water your plants in the first

Place so making sure that you have a nice thick layer of mulch around your garden to keep the moisture level in is huge the other thing that you might want to think about and this broke my heart when I learned it because I love black mulch black mulch does heat up more than

Say brown mulch right and that is just because it’s black the Sun is going to hit it and it’s going to heat up and it’s going to heat up this oil and it’s going to cause more evaporation I love black mulch I love the look of black

Mulch I you know like it’s it’s a it’s a really tough one for me to say because I know how much I love black mulch but it’s the same thing if you use rocks as mulch rocks heat up very fast as well so if you live in a hot area that might not

Be the best type of mulch to use if you are thinking about water conservation strategies other ways to conserve water are actually how you water your plant and that is like I was talking about using a drip irrigation system as opposed to sprinklers or overhead watering that means that the water is

Going to get to where it needs to go without evaporating or without wasting a bunch of water all over the place another way that we can water appropriately is by using proven winers aquapots I love these because it’s actually bottom watering your plants and it’s allowing your plants to just like I

Said develop their root system nice and deep down into into the soil where that uh that container of water is the plant can soak up all the water that it needs and it’s actually going to save water because the plant is only going to take the amount of water it needs from the

Aquapot watering system I really love this system especially for those of us in hot areas because it can actually help us help prevent pots from drying out during the hot days and it will actually save our plants during times of drought or times of triple digit temperatures I know because I tried it

In my garden last year and it worked perfectly so implementing strategies like drip system or like using aqua pots in your pots is really going to help with water conservation and really going to help with Watering your garden okay the very last tip I have Watering your garden properly is checking the water

That your garden has and I know this sounds crazy and of course you would check but if you have a drip irrigation system or if you’re relying on on your spouse to water your plants you kind of don’t know how much water your plants are getting the best tool that you have

To check how much water your plants are getting is your finger all you have to do is stick your finger into the soil and feel around and you can feel if that soil is moist if it has moisture in it or if it’s bone dry maybe your spouse

Didn’t know that they were supposed to water that plant maybe your drip irrigation system is malfunctioning and it’s not working properly maybe your drip irrigation system is broken and it’s spewing water all over the place on low water or drought tolerant plants and it’s overwatering these plants my point

Is is that once you set up your watering system or once you figure out how much you need to water your garden you’re not done you need to constantly check and see how your watering is going in your garden especially when we get into the

Hot days of summer I got into the habit of just walking around every evening and just kind of looking at my my garden and kind of looking at the soil and looking at the leaves checking to see if I see any signs of water stress or heat stress

And if I do I would just stick my finger down into that soil and check the soil uh moisture level and if you feel if you feel like you don’t understand what I’m talking about now if you stick your finger down into the soil trust me you’ll get it eventually I was exactly

Where you were I would take my house plants and I would stick my finger into the soil and I would say I have no idea if this is dry or this is not and I would get really frustrated because I didn’t understand but the more you stick

Your finger down into that soil and the more you feel around the more you’re going to understand what moist soil feels like and what dry soil feels like and so the more you do it the more comfortable you’re going to get then when you walk around to your garden and

You stick your finger in the soil you will be able to understand if that plant has moisture or if it is in need of a drink so tip number five for watering your garden properly is checking it often it is never a job that you can

Kind of just wash your hands of and be done with you need to check it often unfortunately but it is the truth okay so that is it I hope you all enjoyed the five tips I had for watering your garden properly make sure you check out November’s video which was five tips for

Healthy soil and make sure you subscribe to The Proven Winners newsletter winnner Circle it is incredibly helpful it is has so many tips and so many tips from different gardeners all over different regions of the United States so I will leave a link below where you can sign up

For that and that is the same place that you can sign up for The Proven Winners Gardener idea book to be sent to you so I hope you all enjoyed this and I hope you all have a chance to get in your garden Today