From: machanicm@gtephx.UUCP (Mindy Machanic)
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: illegal plants--lobelia
Summary: I dare you to try that never-water trick here...
Date: 8 Apr 92 23:11:48 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona

In article <1992Apr8.113834.3655@iscsvax.uni.edu>, klier@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:
> 
> (ca. 5000 plants), it takes me at least 3 hours to water.  (No, it's
> not a professorial responsibility, but when someone fails to turn up
> to water on the weekend, you either water or watch half the greenhouse
> die...)

Why don't you hook up a dripper system with tube-end drippers like they have in
greenhouses and nurseries around here? Put them on a timer and nobody has to
show up to water!!! (Gee, I'da thunk you professionals woulda thoughta that...)

> Unless you are in a prolonged drought, or there is a hot dry wind, or
> the flower bed is protected from natural rain (like under the eaves of the
> house), you probably shouldn't have to water more than once a week.   Once
> I've gotten things through the initial transplant period, I rarely water 
> again until August, when things are pretty well overgrown (all right, I 
> plant too closely.  I admit it.) and the daytime temps are in the 100's,
> falling to 80 at night.   Then the beds might get a watering every other
> week or so.  But only if I'm seeing water stress in the early morning. 
 
I dare you to try that in places in the southwest. Of course, compared to
northern Iowa, we're always in a prolonged drought with hot dry winds...If you
live in a place with alkaline soil and low rainfall, water your plants more
often. Otherwise the soil will harden up around the little rootlets, the plant
will die of thirst, and they'll never get overgrown enough to worry about it.
But yes, do water at the roots, and not the leaves. (If we went more than three
or four days without watering during the summer here, you'd see more than just a 
little water stress, even with drip irrigation!) If you get lots of rainfall,
like Iowa does, water less often, even in the heat of summer, or you'll drown
the little dears and never teach them to reach deep down for their water.



> If you have mixed beds, with some things craving water and others less
> needy, you can somewhat compensate by taking an unglazed flower pot and
> plugging the drainage hole with a cork and burying it up to the rim next 
> to the plant that is a water hog.  Fill the pot with water and the water
> will gradually leach through the walls of the pot, watering the plants
> around it.  You can also add a little dilute fertilizer.  This is actually
> a very nice technique for tomatoes and prize-winning pumpkins.   

What a great idea! (As long as you don't forget and use a plastic pot...) Does
the cork also act as a water-wick? Or would it work with any kind of plug? I'm 
growing some tomatoes in 15-gallon nursery rubber/plastic pots. Would it work in that
situation?
 
> But I still like ooze hose.

And I still like tube-end drip hose. You say t'maters, I say tomaytoes... (sorry.)
 
--Mindy in Phoenix

-- 
*****************************************************************************************
Mindy Machanic  (AG Communication Systems/Quality Engineering, Phoenix, AZ)               
UUCP: ....!{ncar!noao!asuvax | att}!gtephx!machanicm    FAX: (602) 581-4022
Internet: gtephx!machanicm@asuvax.eas.asu.edu           Voice: (602) 582-7374
Newsgroups: rec.gardens