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If you look around at
the plants in your local nurseries, what consistent factor do you see? Most
of the plants, including larger trees, have been grown in containers. Now
there are many reasons why this has become the trend in growing plants, but
one of the most important is this…it affords all of us the opportunity to
plant spring, summer, fall, and even during the winter. The trees don’t
have to be dug from the ground, no roots are cut, no transplanting
shock…just slide them out of the pot and plant. But how we water these
container grown plants will be a very important factor on their success,
especially during the summer or drier periods of the season.
Established plants would
like 1 inch of rainfall every 10 days or so. But newly planted trees and
shrubs usually require watering more often for the first 18 months or so.
You see, the container soils dry out faster than the surrounding or backfill
soils, so when you water, it’s important that you water the immediate root
ball first. That’s where the tree will get all of its moisture. Make sure
the root ball gets soaked, and then water the surrounding soils as you
can. Keep them evenly moist for the first 3 weeks or so after planting, by
watering every 3-4 days. Then after the first 3 weeks, you can back off the
watering to once every 7 days.
Now there are many ways
to soak your new tree’s root ball, but one of the easiest, and becoming one
of the most popular, is using a Treegator bag…it’s what the pros use!
Simply zip these bags around the trunk of your new tree, fill the bag with
water (20 gallons), and let the bag slow drip water the roots of your tree.
100% absorption…good even moisture right at the root zone…and it actually
cuts down your watering time by as much as 80%. Just fill the bag and let
it drip! You can keep these around your new trees all season long to make
sure they get their proper weekly watering.
And for the evergreens
or plants with lower branches, there’s the Treegator Junior, which fits
under low branches, but still slow drip waters the plants immediate root
zone. |
