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Watering Flowering Plants
In This Section
In this section, you’ll find discussions, explanations, and directions for watering plants in flower gardens and step-by-step irrigation equipment and technique demonstrations, including:
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- Discussion with options for most popular methods of watering flowering plants in home landscapes or gardens.
- Discussion with options for best methods of watering bulbs in home landscapes and gardens.
On This Page
Here, you’ll find discussions of best practices and options for watering flowering plants and two step-by-step demonstrations on automating irrigation in home gardens, with the following subjects beneath each of these titles:
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- How to Water or Irrigate Flowers
- How Much Water and How Often?
- Proper Watering Methods and Quantities
- Automated Watering Systems
- Step-by-Step Instructions
- Installing In-Ground Irrigation
- Installing a Simple Drip-Watering System
How to Water or Irrigate Flowers
Regular in-season watering is ranked as the highest need out of all the different flowering plant care needs. Most flowers should be watered deeply only whenever their soil becomes dry or they begin to show early signs of stress.
The healthy flowering plants that you choose to plant should be well-adapted to your plant hardiness zone, climate, and site. When flowers match their growing location, they are drought tolerant, bloom profusely, and are durable and resilient.
Irrigating regularly in the right amounts for each species, however, is still a requirement every gardener must take seriously and plan to do diligently.
How Much Water and How Often?
How much and how often plants should be watered are key questions for every flower gardeners. Let’s start with your plants’ water needs and how your garden’s soil helps or hurts them.
First refer to the information about each flowering plant you intend to grow found in the plant guides. Under the Soil and Care tabs in the care table for each plant, you’ll find two vital clues about how you should water it.
In the Soil tab, look for the plant’s specific soil-moisture and soil-texture preferences. In the Care tab, note the watering instructions.
In the Features tab, you’ll also see our recommendations for the types of flower gardens where each plant does best and uses in landscape plantings.
Next, evaluate your site, the moisture and texture of your garden’s soil. Surprisingly, this step is more complicated than it first seems. Look beneath the soil’s surface that you see; rather, dig down and examine the soil that will surround your plants’ roots.
It works like this. Water applied to the soil—by nature, as rain, or by a gardener—penetrates slowly depending on the texture of the soil [see: Preparing Garden Soil for Flowers].
If your soil contains too much clay, water will pass through it and be absorbed very slowly. If you apply water too briefly to clayey soils—or if you stop as soon as water begins to puddle and run off—little water will reach the root zone of your plants. Dig down and you’ll see the soil beneath is completely dry.
By contrast, in too-sandy soils, water may flow down beyond the root zone in a matter of minutes, leaving little behind for your plants.
To give your plants a perfect home, the texture of the soil and its make-up are equally important. Try to mix garden soils that consist of equal parts of sand, silt, and clay mixed with decomposed organic matter, or humus. Such soils hold most of the moisture applied to them, yet drain freely. Most plants thrive in water-retaining and mixed-texture soils.
Proper Watering Methods and Quantities
The general gardening rule is to water when the surface of the soil is dry and the soil around the roots is still damp but not moist or wet.
Allowing soils to dry between your water applications is important. Avoid evenly moist conditions that may make your plants susceptible to fungal disease and eventual suffocation.
When in doubt check the subsurface soil for its moisture, either with a probe attached to a moisture meter or by the simpler act of digging down a bit and feeling the soil with your fingers.
For a more accurate measure, conduct a quick and easy percolation test to see how fast your garden soil absorbs water.
A good rule of thumb for the amount of water to apply is the axiom “an inch of water per week, until it runs off.”
The rule suggests that you water the soil until its surface is thoroughly saturated, stopping before the water stands and pools or runs off. Then, only after it’s absorbed, water again until an imaginary inch of water (2.5 cm) has been applied all across the bed.
Water in the morning after air temperatures climb and avoid wetting any foliage during watering. Morning irrigation permits the plant’s roots to receive the water they need and gives plant foliage a chance to dry before evening’s cool temperatures.
Of course, if you use soaker hoses or drip irrigation, they will deliver water directly to the soil without splashing water on your flowering plants.
These watering methods are much more accurate than hand application, both for measuring exactly the amount of water applied and for conserving water by only applying it to the plants, not to bare soil.
Automated Watering Systems
Many gardeners replace the toil of hand watering by installing automatic watering systems for their flowers and landscapes.
These systems—either spray or drip-irrigation—conserve water by applying it at regular intervals in precise amounts. They are easily installed by most homeowners, landscapers, or landscape gardeners.
Occasionally, a plumber is needed to install connections from the home’s water supply system to a convenient spot where control valves and timers will be set in the yard.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Installing In-Ground Irrigation
Trench from the location where the control valves will be installed to the starting points of each watering circuit in your yard, using either a power-trenching machine (shown) or a shovel.
Use Schedule 40 PVC pipe, primer, and PVC cement to join each control valve assembly to the back flow prevention valve and water supply line. Use step-down bushings as required to reduce the line gauge, then attach lateral lines leading out from the valves to each irrigation circuit.
Join each pipe section with couplers using primer and PVC cement. Apply Teflon® plastic tape to join threaded fittings.
Again using Teflon® plastic tape, install swing joints or risers at the site of each sprinkler head or drip-irrigation hose fitting.
Flush the system by turning on each valve and running water until it is free of sediment or debris. Turn off the water. Install all sprinkler heads or emitter couplers. This prevents debris from clogging the heads and emitters.
Turn on and adjust spray heads and drip emitters as needed. Refill all trenches. Install an automatic timer-controller unit as directed by the manufacturer. Connect it to the irrigation-control valves with direct-burial control cable. Plug in the controller and set its program. Test the system’s operation and adjust as required.
Installing a Simple Drip-Watering System
Install a threaded Y-fitting at your faucet or hose bib. These fittings allow you to connect a hose or fill a watering can without the bother of disconnecting your new drip irrigation system.
Read carefully and follow all installation instructions to attach the battery-powered irrigation-control valve to one of the Y-fitting’s hose-thread connectors. Thread adapters or teflon plumbing tape may be needed to prevent leaks.
Attach a 5/8-in. (16-mm) drip irrigation supply line to the control valve, using a hose clamp or threaded fitting. Run the line to your in-ground flowering plants or flowers in containers.
Install 1/4-in. (6-mm) lateral lines with drip-emitters using a drip irrigation punch and a straight punch connector fittings to join each lateral line to the 5/8-in. (16-mm) water supply line.
Following installation, test and set the system. Turn on the water to the control valve at the Y-fitting and open the valve to the control valve. Select the control valve’s timer’s day-interval option, and set it to water every three days. Choose the timed application for irrigation, and set it to operate for 15 minutes each watering cycle. Emitters with specific drip rates should be selected to meet the watering needs of each plant.