Dave: Hi! I'm Dave Epstein. And today’s Growing Wisdom, we want to talk about the fact that fall is such a great time to plant good deals on trees. But watering requirements are very different for a deciduous tree like this guy than they would be in the spring or summer. So, we brought in Ken Meyer to talk to us about just that. Ken, when I get this home or you guys put it in for us, how do we water it differently in October and November than we would in June and July?
Ken: Well June and July, on average of you have hot temperatures with a breeze. You need to water a minimum of three times a week, 20 minutes, on soil, trickle per tree.
Come the fall, the temperatures are lower. There’s less evaporation, the wind is less of a factor in terms of dehydrating the plants. But it still needs water until the roots get to be below 40 degrees. It's depending on bringing in more water for winter storage so it can start up again in the spring.
In the planting process itself, you fill the whole halfway with the soil mixture but then you flood it literally turning it into a lake. Let it drain. You flood it again. The water will be absorbed by the root mass and the root ball. The ground around it will be saturated. That’s the best way for the tree to head into the winter. Then with your watering once a week, that would maintain that moisture for the root mass and give it enough moisture to come out happy and starting for the spring season.
Dave: Now, if it rains a lot, if I have a rain gauge and I get an inch of water each week after it's initially planted.
Ken: It's a blessing. Then you can take a day off and you need to water but you need to monitor that.
Dave: And Ken, what about over watering?
Ken: If you feed the trees, getting sucked into the hole deeper and deeper and it's sinking. You have too much water going on there. You need to know what the soil type. If it's a clay soil, you want to limit the amount the water you're putting because a clay soil basically forms like a pot. The water won't escape it.
So, you need to monitor hat and understand what your soil structures are like.
Dave: So, fall is a great time to continue to plant. You can be planting these trees right through until the ground freezes. And remember, you need to water them when they first go in and then once a week unless you have adequate rain. And then you don’t have to worry about it.
Come back every week for more information here at Growing Wisdom.
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