10 Effective Ways to Ceaselessly Water Your Garden
This insightful article of ours will discuss ten effective ways to ceaselessly water your garden. But when we say ‘watering ceaselessly,’ we don’t refer to a water line that will continuously shower your plants with water.
Rather, the main idea here is to maintain a mix of natural and advanced watering systems that will feed your garden with appropriate amounts of water.
However, if you have a large and beautiful garden and are struggling to water it like many others, put your worry aside and dive into the ten garden-irrigation ways in the following.
1. Using a Retractable Garden Hose
Using a retractable garden hose will prove to be a smart move in watering your garden while reducing water wastage. Retractable hoses are expandable, which comes in handy in ceaselessly watering the garden.
Regular hoses often get tangled which obstructs the water flow. Sometimes, this entanglement can develop pores in the surface, leaking water as you’re trying to water your plants and soil.
So, try purchasing a retractable garden hose for you that fits your garden size, including all the plants you need to water every day.
2. Upgrading Irrigation System
Upgrading the irrigation system in your garden can be a vital step because of its cost and, at the same time, its efficiency. Investing in this will give you a smart weather-based irrigation controller. Amazingly, introducing this system in your garden will increase your watering efficiency by a whopping 35%-40%.
However, many gardeners are reluctant to have this system as their monthly water bills get higher. While it’s absolutely true to an extent, you’ll be joyous within a few months to find your flourishing garden paying off for the increasing bills nicely.
3. Scheduling to Water Pots and the Garden
Watering your plants at the wrong time is one of the common mistakes in gardening.
But if you split the watering schedule for your pots and the garden itself, you’ll save a significant amount of water. Besides, you won’t be overwatering your plants, which is a concern for many gardeners.
As the experts say, it’s wise to water the pot plants in the afternoon, precisely between 12.00 pm and 4.00 pm. This creates a perfect balance of oxygen and nutrient supply in the soils of pot plants.
However, when it comes to irrigating your garden, the best time is the early morning, especially before the temperature increases. It saves the water from evaporating much while the soil can properly absorb it.
4. Installing Automatic Rainwater Stopper
Installing an automatic rainwater stopper can save your garden from being overwatered. You have to install this stopper in your smart irrigation system to control reserving rainwater.
Simply, its function is to stop the irrigation system upon downpour. Automatic rainwater stoppers aren’t very expensive. You may get one installed at $200 or below, including the fittings and labor.
In fact, in many parts of the country, small to large garden owners tend to save a lot of money by utilizing this advanced irrigation system.
5. Protecting Soil’s Hydration by Mulching
It’s as important to preserve the water content inside the soil as it is to water it regularly. If you want to ensure that the garden soil remains moist, applying mulch should be the best policy to come up with.
Mulching is an inexpensive and organic way to keep the root zone of the plant cool while maintaining the soil’s appropriate hydration level. You can mix wood chips, shredded bark, wheat hulls, fresh or dried hay, crop residues, etc., to make mulch.
The ingredients used in mulching maintain moisture and mix with the soil over time while contributing to its nutritional requirements. This also controls water irrigation, reducing the need for overwatering.
6. Watering According to Weather Forecast
Gardeners can be weather watchers as well; it’s because you can’t deny the importance of forecasting the possibility of rain on a particular day.
Imagine if you’ve showered your garden only to get it drenched followed by a heavy rainfall within an hour. Not only your garden and plants will be heavily watered, but also the smaller plants will most likely be destroyed.
To mitigate that risk, you can turn off the automatic sprinklers when you observe dark clouds in the sky. Moreover, you must consider the season in particular. The fall should make your water much less than what you’re used to in other seasons.
However, if you want to water less, which might sometimes be necessary for summer, winter, and autumn, planting tall plant species can work nicely. Tall plants like juniper, cherry, maple, etc., can shade the other smaller plants while reducing the water evaporation rate.
7. Integrating Irrigation with Rainwater
Watering your garden while keeping it eco-friendly can only be achieved by integrating irrigation systems with natural rainwater. This cuts the pressure on the public water line, which mostly ends up in hectic monthly bills.
Hence, this simple but a little arduous process can take the pressure off your shoulder regarding the city water supply. Besides, the rainwater is also full of nutrients that the garden soil and plants can benefit from. Eventually, it’s a practical and highly advantageous system to put in place.
You can integrate regular water and rainwater into your garden by:
- Installing the rainwater barrel in your garden’s strategic places
- Collecting rainwater in those barrels when it’s raining
- Building a rain garden, which is essentially a specific landscape with a concave for letting the rainwater flow in
8. Focusing on Organic Gardening
Organic gardening is an effective way to benefit your plants and soil. You’ll notice that plants are growing faster and there will be fewer diseases in them as they mature.
You’ll have to mix the proper organic ingredients with the soil before watering the plants. This way the organic matter will be absorbed in the water, providing the soil and plant with ample nutrients.
Twigs, sticks, straws, compost, leaves, and many other elements can be used in an organic mix. The organic matter preserves the water in the soil for a longer time, which lessens the necessity to water the garden frequently.
9. Stop Overwatering the Garden
Inexperienced gardeners often spoil their plants by overwatering. It’s not optimum as the excessive water may sometimes boil up the tender roots during heat while carrying away the necessary nutrients from the plants on other occasions.
Overwatering not only deteriorates the soil quality, but it takes a toll on your water usage. The downsides of overwatering are:
- Downgraded soil quality due to low oxygen supply
- Excessive water bills
- Loss of plant nutrients
- Sloppy garden path
- Inviting waterborne diseases
- Harmful bugs invasion
10. Apply Diverse Garden Designs
Advanced garden designs are helpful in retaining enough water for your plants while getting rid of the excessive portion of it. That’s the whole point of a good garden design.
Some effective garden designs involve:
- Building mounds around trees, plants, and shrubs to lessen the amount of runoff. This will also let the soil soak in water gradually.
- Plant water-absorbing trees and herbs in your garden so they drink up the excessive water.
- You may consider pruning your plants and trees. Lesser leaves require less moisture, hence, less watering.
Factors That Make the Garden Requiring More Water
You should have an idea of some gardening and natural factors that ultimately leave your garden wanting more water. Ignoring these factors may dwindle your gardening hobby while leading you to financial loss.
Below are four such factors that require more watering in a garden:
- Pruning: As you prune, you clip off the edges of the leaves for a better landscape view, and it helps them flourish. Hence, they start taking more water than before.
- Mowing: Mowing increases the use of water on the leaves’ surface. As they transpire more due to the mowing of the turfs, watering frequently becomes necessary.
- Fertilizing: Like pruning, fertilizing also helps plants and flowers in their fast growth. Hence, you need to increase the amount of water you feed them every day.
- Blooming: With growth, the blooming of flowers and fruiting becomes a matter of time. And as your trees are full of flowers and fruits, they need more water to stay put through the season.
Pro Tips to Reduce the Watering Amount
Let’s get your hands on some expert tips that can help you save water while doing them just enough to help your garden thrive with colors and fragrances.
Here are those life-saving tips:
- Plant smaller plants initially so you don’t need to water them profusely.
- Sharp mowing leaves your plants with minimum need for water.
- Reduce fertilizing your plants. Feed them with more organic matter to retain water.
- Let the garden grass grow taller, so it can develop deeper roots. Deep roots retain more water from the soil.
- Do mulching around the plants and open the soil to keep the surface cool and moistened.
- Beware of the weeds and pluck them off regularly.
- Apply the apt irrigation systems like we’ve discussed above (rainwater collection, rainwater stopper, etc.) for watering your garden.
Parting Thoughts
You should be willing to persevere in making your garden small heaven. But avoiding the points we’ve discussed above regarding watering will spoil your plants, flowers, and fruits in no time.
What you can take away from our article is that excessive watering drowns your soil and plants, leaving them struggling to get enough oxygen. Besides, being stingy as well as lazy about watering will leave your plants perched in the blazing heat.
The best policy to follow is a balanced watering plan, including proper irrigation systems, mulching, good garden design, watering schedule, etc.