THE WATERING PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 109, 1 February 1935, Page 18

THE WATERING PROBLEM

How to Handle It The recent dry weather lias seen much use of the water-can and garden hose, and one wonders how much of this is justified. Pot plants, windowboxes and some transplanted plants must have frequent applications from the watering can, but it is on the beds and borders that so much time is wasted on useless watering. The adjective useless might well be replaced by harmful. Toying with a water-can during a dry spell only encourages surface-root-ing. Then one fine day the watering is forgotten, and the hot sun dries up the soil, scorches the roots, and over go the cherished plants as flat as pancakes. The chances are very small of them ever surviving this treatment. If water must be given, then take the rose off the can and saturate the soil right down to the roots. A square yard of ordinary garden soil will, if well dried out, absorb anything from twenty to forty gallons of water before becoming saturated. Thus the application of a dribble to each plant is mere waste of time. Having once got the water well down into the soil, the problem next arises of how to keep as much of it there as possible. Here the Dutch hoe comes to our aid in no uncertain way. Use it frequently to keep the soil well broken up between all plants. The blanket of dust formed in this way will put an effective check on evaporation from wet soil underneath. Of course, it will also do what no amount of watering will ever do; keep the weeds down. Aster plants planted in a well-manured and deeply dug! bed have since endured fourteen days of unbroken hot sunshine without receiving one drop of water. Instead, the Dutch hoe is used to move the top soil about for five minutes every day. Far from suffering, the plants have put on five or six healthy, dark green leaves since they were transplanted, and are growing rapidly.