How to water a tree ?

[sleddriver]

Out at the drip line, about 3' on either side. You can lay down a large soaker hose in an arc if it won't go all the way around, let it slowly drip and soak in.

Or you can go to a hardware store and rig a piece of 1/2 or 5/8" PVC to a garden hose. Add a shut-off valve and a 90° elbow to it as well. Turn the water on full blast and let the water pressure blast a hole through the dirt while you force it down. When you get about 4-6" down, cut the water back to a trickle and leave it in place for about 20min or so. Move around the drip line about 5' or so and repeat. This puts the water down in the ground where the feeder roots are instead of on the surface where it can evaporate.

If your soil is very sandy, you don't need to do this. Just lay a soaker hose on the ground and let her drip away. However, if your "soil" is clay-infested-rock as it is at my house, it not only helps aerate the soil, but gets the water deeper, faster, than watering on the surface.

A little trick I learned from an old-timer a few decades ago! Makes sense, is cheap and very effective for dealing with poor soil.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
"Exact circumference of the branches." Interesting.

That's what I've heard as well. The roots will extend out roughly as far as the branches.


It is amazing, though, how even reasonable quality soil can equalize moisture and nutrients throughout the circumference of the extension of the branches if one is not so picky about where the water goes.

 

[Mamala Bay]

Soaker hose slow watering. How is the soil any ground cover. Mondo grass is a good ground cover for trees. Problem with large trees they produce shade which can decrease ground cover plant growth.

Mondo grass can tolerate shade, no mowing, holds moisture in the soil. Better having roots and plant growth under a tree than bare soil trees grow stronger and healthier. You need activity in the soil to have a healthy base.

 

[DBMaster]

Nobody uses these any more? I used one consistently for the first 2-3 years after planting any tree. The soil around here isn't exactly the best for trees, either. There is virtually no runoff or evaporation waste, either.

Root Feeder

 

[Mamala Bay]

Originally Posted By: DBMaster
Nobody uses these any more? I used one consistently for the first 2-3 years after planting any tree. The soil around here isn't exactly the best for trees, either. There is virtually no runoff or evaporation waste, either.

Root Feeder


If you got poor soil tree roots tend to grow not deeper but wider on the surface. This is true with back filled coral soil reason roots are feeding and trying get moisture on the top layer much farther from their drip line. You got good drainage but poor quality soil where nutrients don't hold well they tend to leach fast.

I'd opt to have some ground cover or some plant growth on the top layer to keep moisture and improve soil condition. If you ever notice in public trees where there is grass(thick blades St. Augustine grass) growing versus bare soil, the bare soil trees look weaker brown spotty leaves vs the grass growth looks healthy.

 

[DBMaster]

That makes a lot of sense since my trees began REALLY doing well when I started paying for scheduled lawn chemical application. I could not seem to get the fertilizer and weed control applications right. the service is well worth the money for me. I still do all my own pruning and mowing. My older trees are starting to show some noticeable roots near the ground surface. Not really an awful thing in this area. I have Bermuda grass, but I keep my trees pruned high enough to allow sun to reach the grass most of the day. Once it doesn't you almost have to switch to St. Augustine if you still want a lawn. I want to avoid that because SA is a more water hungry turf grass.

 

[gfh77665]

On top of the repetitive floods so far, we got hit with Tropical Storm Bill last week.

Over 3 and a half feet of rain so far this year... Much more to go.

 

[DBMaster]

^Yes, but having lived here forty years I know that it may be wet for a year or two followed by five more years of drought. With the continued massive influx of new residents it's only a matter of time before we're rationing water again. The lakes can only hold so much and they are depleted at a rapid rate when the rains falls below average.

 

[gfh77665]

Not where I live in TX. You may have drought in Cen-TX or West TX, but I live in the swamps. We average a full 5ft./year, in the 2011 drought we had 2.5 ft. of rainfall, then right back to 5.5 ft. in 2012.

2009 -- 5 ft.
2010 -- 4 ft.
2011 -- 2.5 ft.
2012 -- 5.5 ft.
2013 -- 4.5 ft.
2014 -- 4.5 ft.
2015 -- 7.0 ft. (extrapolated).

 

[DBMaster]

I'm in DFW. Drought is a fact of life, as is flooding. I have seen several cycles of multi-year drought followed by inundation for a year or two. It's the literal definition of feast or famine.

I guess that's partially because Texas is so large that is encompasses several climatic zones.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: gfh77665
On top of the repetitive floods so far, we got hit with Tropical Storm Bill last week.

Over 3 and a half feet of rain so far this year... Much more to go.

This amount is more than twice what we had in So Cal the last 4 years. Total rain fall since 2011 till now in Irvine, CA was less than 20".

 

[DBMaster]

Humans are interesting. There were probably plenty of signs and warnings about severe drought in CA. Yet, I'll bet almost no one cut back on water usage or even tried to conserve until it became mandatory. That's exactly what happened here for the past five years, or so. And, lo and behold, lawns were still green and shrubs and trees didn't die while only being allowed to water twice a week. The ground here is saturated to he point of not being able to absorb more water and still 25% of the people in my neighborhood still have their sprinkler systems turned on.

I can't think of a good descriptive word that wouldn't be censored by BITOG.

 

[Clevy]

Humans as a whole are very conscious of their surroundings and easily evolve when required.
However once you add an agency to the mix humanity is lost. It stops reading the signs and depends on the agency to take care of it.
Add money and power and the agency inevitably corrupts.
The reason humanity has survived on this planet is its ability to immediately evolve once conditions change. A regulating body wants no change and therefore dies as a whole.
Only small pockets of humanity has survived to repopulate as the earth has been hit by meteors and natural disasters.
Why
Because while the agency holds a wait and see attitude the single mind says run and hide.

 

[DBMaster]

^Interesting take. I like it.

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: DBMaster
^Interesting take. I like it.


Thanks.

I had to read it over a few times to see I was getting across what I was trying to say. I sorta got it.

 

[DBMaster]

If I am interpreting you correctly, you are saying that once we create an entity to be caretaker of a resource and then stop paying attention to its actions we become so complacent that we fail to see warning signs. Even the agency itself will do that as bureaucracies can tend to become slow to react as they get more established and large.