Now that you’ve planted…

Maintaining your new (and old) plants

So you’ve just planted but you don’t want to lose your investment of time, energy, and money. Maybe you had a landscaper put in your new plants, but now you’re on your own as far as taking care of them. Here is some information I recently put together for my website that I think would be helpful for most Sun City gardeners.

Watering your plants after installation:

• Don’t overwater but don’t let plants dry out

• DEEP water at drip line, away from base of plant-you can purchase and use a soaker hose that you can attach to a garden house, loop it along the drip line of your trees to give them a deep soak during prolonged hot dry seasons

• Water as long as it takes to get to most roots, approximately 8-12 inches is sufficient for most plants, deeper for trees (but if ground is soaked to at least 12 inches deep, you can assume that you’ve added enough water)

• You can use an inexpensive moisture meter to test wetness depth

• New plants and trees should be watered three times a week, for the first month

• Twice a week is probably OK for a second month after planting

• After that, depending on rainfall, and especially if the weather has cooled of, once a week may be sufficient

• Modify the schedule during extreme heat

• Deciduous trees and plants don’t need water when they are dormant during winter

Trimming

• Many plants won’t need trimming if they are young

• Do a big prune in mid to late February-this applies to flowering perennials and perennial shrubs which can also take a pruning after they bloom a first time in spring. Remove about the top third of the plant, containing the mostly brown bloom-this is called deadheading

• Do the scratch test at different heights when you’re thinking about pruning; if plant is brown at the base you can cut it off to 3 inches. If scratch test shows green, then trim to whatever height you want the plant to start at when it leaves out again.

• When pruning evergreens, best to do it in late winter and cut off plants just above nodes to whatever height and shape you want

• Pruning trees is more complicated; most people prune when it’s not necessary. Get advice from me or someone who knows trees. And unless absolutely necessary, don’t prune trees during their active growing season, between February and June for most species. Always, at any time of year, paint the surface of cut or broken branches on Oaks

Mulch

• Try to maintain a 3 inch layer around your plants

• If the plant is in rock, move the rock away from the plant and mulch to the drip line