Silent Drought- Part II…Safe-guarding Your Garden
Winter droughts are insidious. They creep out of long shadows of the winter sunshine to eat away at plant vigor. Because our plants are dormant and not actively growing we tend to put our awareness of the water needs of our gardens out of mind. Then wonder why our plants look lackluster the following growing season. Yes dormant plants do have root systems that are active during the winter- active maintaining moisture in tissues not shed in the autumn. What can we do for winter moisture stress?
To begin with, we must realize that not all plants will be terribly damaged if moisture is readily available when dormancy is broken. Most plants native to a locale are naturally acclimated to the vagaries of the weather in that locale. Secondly we must realize that this type of injury is primarily in the form of an added stress on plants, not acute damage. It is cumulative and adds another layer of burden on top of previous and under future insults and slights. So a plant's stress level entering this winter will have a large impact on how the plant responds to the added drought stress of sub-normal rainfall now.
So, plain and simple, our actions should be focused on stress reduction. We can't do much now about the past stresses caused by over a year's worth of deficit rainfall, but we can avoid compounding that stress this winter and spring with a few simple and largely commonsense activities.
First off, we can water or irrigate our garden plants through the winter. Certainly we won't do this as often as we would during the growing season as water needs are not as high and nor is competition for moisture. I would say on the average, you may want to provide about ¼ of amount of moisture you would during the growing season. Do not over saturate the soil for extended periods of time. Evapo-transpiration losses of soil moisture are reduced in winter and providing too much water could be as harmful as not supplying enough. If your soils are heavy (mostly clay) err on the light side, if they are light (primarily sandy) err on the heavy side.
If you didn't renew your mulch in the fall, consider adding some now if soil surfaces are exposed. It will still help hold moisture that is present and any new that may fall. Remember whenever adding mulch, 2 to 3 inches depth of total mulch is plenty. When adding mulch be careful not to injure shoots of your spring bulbs. It is ok to build it up around any bulb shoots already coming up, but stick to the 2 to 3 inch rule. If you have light soils you may wish to do a thorough watering before adding mulch. If your soils are heavy, check the soil moisture level before adding mulch. If you can ball the soil up and then pinch a ribbon out between your thumb and forefinger, don't add more water.
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