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Index : Watering
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- 22. Parched Desert Plants Need a Drink - Top
If you live next to open areas of the desert, no doubt you've noticed how parched the plants look. Prickly pears are withering, palo verde and mesquite trees are losing limbs and branches. It's all due to several back to back years of below normal rainfall.
This year may be the worst for drought. With barely half our normal rainfall over the past year, and no relief in sight, it's time to give your desert plants a drink.
If you have desert trees like ironwood, palo verde and mesquite that are on your property but are not receiving irrigation, one good application of water now can stave off further drought injury. This is also the case with prickly pear and other cacti that may be an important part of your landscape.
Slow soaking of these plants is most important. Desert soils can be hard, and if the water is applied too quickly, it just runs off without soaking into the roots.
The best slow soaking device is a soaker hose. Made from porous rubber, the soaker hose seeps water out it's entire length. This allows for slow absorption of water into the soil and a thorough application of water to the roots.
Use a regular garden hose to get the water out to where it is needed. Then hook the soaker hose on and spiral it around the plant to be watered. For cacti, spiral the soaker hose starting at the base and continuing out 4 or 5 feet beyond the edge of the outer pads. Of course the roots spread out much farther, but watering in close will provide enough water to expand the wrinkled pads.
For desert trees, start two to three feet out from the trunk, and spiral the hose out maintaining a three foot spacing between the circling hose. Extend the hose out to at least the edge of the branches, farther if you can. On large trees, you may have to water the roots a section at a time.
Desert trees have far-spreading roots that are fairly shallow. This allows them to absorb the maximum amount of moisture from our heavy, but short, monsoon rains. For this reason, the soaker hose should be left on long enough to wet the top 18 to 24 inches of soil. This could take a long time.
Turn the soaker hose on low. The water should drip out, not spray out. Leave it on several hours then check how deep the water has penetrated. You can do this by digging a small hole or using a metal probe. A long screw driver or piece of metal re-bar can be pushed into moist soil but will stop when the probe hits dry soil. You can use the probe to measure the depth of wetting.
It's also important to give extra water now to large landscape trees. Pine, eucalyptus, elm, ash, sycamore, oak and other large trees that are watered with drip irrigation seldom get all the water they need. Use the soaker hose in the same fashion as you would for desert trees, but water deeper - down two to three feet deep.
For desert cacti and trees one good soaking with water now should be enough to carry them through to our Summer Monsoon Season. However, large landscape trees may require a second watering in the mid to later part of June.
When making decisions about what to water, make trees your top priority! They provide cooling shade, oxygen to breath, filtration of air pollutants and pollens, wind buffering, soil improvement and beauty. Vegetables, flowers, ground covers and shrubs are great too, but they grow quickly, and can be replaced at minimal cost. Not so with trees, so give them special care and attention! - Updated: May 19, 2002
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