I haven’t posted anything for a few weeks; it seemed rude to post on my blog when I had a garden profile article that was past due. I’ve also been busy with fall planting. I bought several things at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ fall plant sale, and four days later I got a big delivery of 24 free shrubberies from Proven Winners. I’m working on a blog post for Alabama Gardener about the trial plants, so check here next week.
With so many new plants in the ground it would be very easy to forget to water one or two, but I have a system.
The letter “P” designates the day that I planted, and a check mark indicates when I watered. My friend Trace calls my system “intense”, but he doesn’t know the half of it. There are many, many columns on this spreadsheet.
When watering trees and shrubs, this is my rule of thumb:
For the first 7-10 days, water every day; finish the first month watering every other day; water twice a week for the next 8 months; and then complete the first year watering once a week. Increase the amount of water and the area that you water as time goes by. Unless we have a drought, or you chose a thirsty plant, most trees and shrubs won’t need additional water after their first year.
But for the perennials that are about to go dormant, I follow this instead:
For the first 7-10 days, water every day; water twice a week until after a hard frost; unless we don’t get rain for longer than two weeks, you can discontinue watering until plants break dormancy, then make sure they get an inch of water a week – either rain or supplemental watering – until temperatures cool in fall.
Both these schedules are just starting points. Plants in shade need less water than plants in sun. Plants in clay soils need less water than plants in sandy soil. Evergreens need more water in winter than deciduous plants. Plants need more water when it’s hot or when it’s windy. County Extension Agent, Tony Glover says, “There is no cookbook water plan for everything. The only answer that works for everything is ‘water when it needs it’ ;)”
So I hope that was helpful and cleared everything up, but that’s enough boring advice. Let’s look at pretty pictures.
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Foam flower (Tiarella ‘Appalachian Trail’)
I bought that foam flower at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ fall plant sale, along with some dinosaur kale that is as beautiful as it is delicious.
The kale will get 3-4 feet tall, and I’ll harvest the outer leaves all winter. It looks fabulous next to my phenomenal lavender.
Have you heard about phenomenal lavender (Lavandula x intermedia ‘Phenomenal’) yet? It was new in 2012, and I’ve only had mine since spring 2014, but it has done better than any other lavender I’ve ever grown. The other lavenders are dead, or they look like this next picture.
My last picture is another reason that I’m late with this blog post. The dogwood tree is so lovely and the fall sunlight is so soft on the garden that it’s hard to get my butt off the front porch.
One more piece of advice, here in North Alabama, the best time to transplant is between Halloween and Thanksgiving. And water it good a day or two before you plan to transplant.