Common Watering Mistakes: 

Underwatering:  The top 4 or 5 inches of soil or mulch is moist, it even is wet to the touch. The problem is that many trees or larger shrubs have a root system that extends down 24 inches or more.  The plant only appears completely saturated when in fact it is not.     

We have even seen flowers planted around a tree or shrub thrive and the tree itself do poorly or perish because the surface watering was enough for the flowers but did little for the deeper tree or shrub roots.

Inconsistent Watering: Occasionally, we will see plants  perish after having successfully acclimated to their new habitat.

To oversimplify, there are basically two type of planting areas:

(A)  There are planting areas in which the plants only need to be watered the first season, and then can survive without additional watering afterwards.  This does not happen by chance, it is a combination of many factors including soil conditions, wind and light exposure, drainage and competition for moisture, and appropriate plant selection.                              

 (B) The remaining planting areas when planted, will not allow plants to survive over a long period of time without some additional care.  Most of the time the additional care consists of knowing when and how much additional water is needed throughout the growing season. 

Over-watering: In general over-watering occurs in select beds where some sort of automatic watering device is used. Misadjusted or poorly designed sprinkler systems are many times to blame. Additional factors such as poor soil conditions and grade can also come into play.

Solution: Check how deeply the water has actually saturated the soil.  Use any thin long rod (large screw drive) to probe into the soil close to the root ball, being careful not to damage the roots of the plant. Check in different spots in your bed,  both before and after you water and also on several different occasions. Gradually, you will get an idea which areas need additional water or less.

In general, newly installed plants need to be thoroughly watered two or three times a week throughout the first growing season.  In the following seasons, all plants should be checked regularly and watered during the hotter and drier parts of the year.