thisplace.com.au - Watering

A healthy garden is achieved through proper watering. Every Queensland gardener needs to know is how to maximise the effect of rain.

Mulch increases soil fertility, worm activity and water retention and eliminates weeding. The first opportunity to mulch comes when you start up the lawnmower. Any prunings you have cut can be thrown on the lawn, so that the mower mulches up prunings, lawn clippings and any stray leaves.

These clippings and prunings can be returned immediately to garden beds, preferably with some manure and other mulch ingredients for spice. Many gardeners argue these ingredients should first be composted. But surely if there is goodness in this material, it is better returned to the garden bed instead of leaching into the soil beneath the compost heap.

A compost bin is handy for all those kitchen scraps which, when rotted in six to eight months, form the most wonderful potting soil. Many gardeners who gave up watering during the recent dry spell may have given up hope of reviving their lawns, but they should not despair. Even when they are crisp brown, lawns need only 20-30mm of sprinkler water to return to life.

By the same token, shrubs that have shed their leaves and are brown and limp can be pruned almost to ground level where their green stumps will be in hibernation awaiting rain. Now is the time to prepare for rain and when the downpour comes be ready to act. The best idea, although not the most pleasant, is to take a bag of organic lawn fertiliser in the middle of a downpour and spread it around. This is the easiest way for lawns to recover from the drought.

In nature, the news is never all bad. Although the dry has wreaked havoc with most moisture loving plants, roses have probably had one of the best spring flowerings on record. The low humidity has precluded the damaging fungal diseases downy mildew or black spot from rose leaves. When the rain returns, you should regularly spray your rose leaves with milk or Condy's crystals diluted in water to a burgundy red colour to keep these pests away.

Keep water up to your mango and citrus trees by applying a slow running hose at least once a week. Passionfruit vines which have been watered deeply once a week should be heavy with flowers and new fruit. Both passionfruit vines and papaws trees have large leaves, which means they expire large amounts of water, hence the need for regular deep watering. Jacarandas have had a magnificent flowering display earlier than usual this year because they come from Brazil and are used to a dry climate with low humidity during spring.

Whenever a tree or fruiting plant is under stress, it generally produces more flowers or fruit than usual in a last ditch effort to survive and reproduce. Poincianas which come from Madagascar are also flowering early this year because of the dry spell and will produce magnificent red displays until Christmas. The same goes for the red flowering and native brachychiton and silky oak which are producing magnificent yellow flowers.

The prolific flowering which acts as survival techniques for stressed plants provides tremendous amount of nectar for birds, bees and butterflies, similarly stressed. If you live anywhere near bush it is a good idea to place shallow water containers in your back garden for the wildlife.

Source: Sunday Mail