Are you overwatering your plants?
Caring for flowers, shrubs lawns, trees, vegetables, etc. is usually a lot more work than most people realize. As a general rule of thumb, all plants need proper sunlight, nutrients, adequate soil drainage and water. Each of these facets are essential for maintaining healthy plants but failing to provide what plants need tends to lead to serious problems. One of the main mistakes people make with their flowers, lawns or vegetables is proper watering.
Plants that are receiving too little water will show symptoms such as leaf cupping, wilting, dry soil, stunted growth, and dry or dead leaf tips. Plants that are overwatered will exhibit symptoms such as wilted yellow leaves and stunted growth. Unfortunately, under watering and overwatering can exhibit the same symptoms, and this usually leads people to water even more which can cause even more problems for plants. However, there are different steps that can be taken in order to ensure that plants are receiving the right amount of water.
In general, most flowers, shrubs, lawns, vegetables, trees, etc. will require about an inch of rain per week during the growing season. Regardless if irrigation is utilized or manually watering, it is best practice to water deeply and infrequently. Frequent light watering or frequent scheduled watering are not bestcase scenario because frequent light watering can lead to a greater risk of disease depending on the species of plants, and scheduled watering does not necessarily always take into account rain fall which can lead to overwatering. Additionally, the best time of day for watering is late evening or early morning to prevent plant stress by watering during the heat of the day. When establishing plants or lawns, the watering requirement is quite different, but once established plants will perform best when receiving an inch of rain per week when applied deeply and infrequently.
The easiest way to prevent overwatering is simply to monitor how much water plants are receiving. Install a rain gauge in order to know how much rainfall was received before watering. After measuring how much rainfall is received each week, it will be easier to determine how much water is necessary. Soil moisture can be detected by feeling whether the soil feels cool and slightly damp roughly two inches below the surface a couple of days after watering. Document rainfall, irrigation and manual watering to prevent oversights. Know what type of soil the plants are in because a heavy clay soil is going to hold in water longer and potentially cause drainage issues.
Overwatered plants become susceptible to root rot and tend to grow shorter and stubbier roots and can cause foliage die back. Additionally, overwatered plants will allow for diseases to establish due to the plant weakening and creating a prime environment for bacteria or fungus. For more information, please contact the Extension office by phone at 478-445-43974 or email brennan4@uga.edu.