Don't forget to water!

Hi everybody--Just a quick reminder--as Debbie said in the Garden program at the library--we are in the midst of a drought right now. How our plants (especially our woody plants and conifers) go through the next several weeks as they enter winter growth patterns is going to have a big impact on how they survive the winter. Plants are stressed right now for lack of moisture, and we don't want them going into dormancy in this stressed out state. Keep watering your gardens--an inch a week if we don't get rain. Pay special attention to recently transplanted plants, woody trees and shrubs and especially your conifers. Keep this up until the ground begins to freeze. If you have a valuable tree, you can take one of the little overhead spray sprinklers and turn it on very low and just leave it on for an hour or so to soak the ground. If you pay for your water, watering cans and buckets would probably be a more intelligent way to go about it. Don't forget your gray water can be used for this. Pull your washing machine drain hose up and run the final rinse water into buckets. If you have dehumidifiers use the water they collect to water the garden with. Mulching deeply after a thorough soaking will help conserve soil moisture. Its a pain to have to keep watering this late in the year--usually by now the fall rains have stepped in to give us a break, but it's not to be right now.
HTTD! Fearless