While winter is usually not the right time to worry about watering your trees, especially in the Midwest, it is easy to neglect your tree this season. Just like us, water is the lifeblood of plants and trees. Proper watering is crucial for the health and growth of your trees and shrubs. A drought-stressed plant will succumb to various types of insects and diseases, more so than a tree with the proper amount of water it needs for survival. This article will discuss the appropriate way and how often to water your trees to keep them alive and healthy.
One of the most common misconceptions in the watering tree is that if you run your sprinkle system 3 to 4 times a week, it would be enough. No! If you water your lawn with sprinklers, it would only be enough for your property. Instead, running a sprinkling system for 10-20 minutes every day might be enough to get the soil moist at a depth of a few inches if you’re lucky, and it’s not very warm. For healthy trees, the depth for soil moisture must be 4-12 at a minimum. It isn’t easy to achieve that with sprinklers.
The Right Way Of Watering Tree
A soil probe attached to a garden hose is one of the best ways of watering trees. You need to push it into the soil below the grass; the depth should be approximately 6 inches. In case you do not have a soil probe, you can lay your hose without attachment and turn it on 1/4 turn.
ü Young trees, less than two years, need 25 gallons of water once or twice a week to get established. For better results, focus more on watering the outer half of their root balls and the soil around them. Their roots may want to expand beyond the root ball and further into the soil. People make the biggest mistake while watering their young trees is putting the hose right at the trunk base. It’s not a good practice because roots are the most active where there’s water. We want the roots to grow away from the tree trunk, not up or around.
Established trees need watering at least once a month if we do not have enough moisture from Mother Nature. Place the soil probe or hose at the drip line. You can also place the soil probe on the outer reach of the branches. A good practice for how much water is 10 gallons per inch of trunk diameter inch at a minimum. So if you have a ten diameter tree, 100 gallons per watering, you could time how long it takes to fill a five-gallon bucket with your hose to get a figure on how long to let the hose run. If it takes one minute to fill the bucket, you would need to water for twenty minutes. Divide that by 4 areas around the drip-line of the 3, and you would water at least 5 minutes per area.