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Index : Watering
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- 6. Time to Water Desert Trees and Cacti - Top
- If you’ve notice prickly pear shriveling, palo verde dropping stems and branches, mesquites turning crisp and dry, it’s all due to our current drought. No significant precipitation has come our way since August of last year! We should be in the middle of our Winter rainy season, but were stuck in a dry rut. So, it’s time to give some of our suffering plants a good 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, barrel, and saguaro cacti that may be an important part of your landscape.
The best way to apply water to these non-irrigated landscape plants is by using 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 standard garden hose to get the water out to where it’s 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 5 or 6 feet from the base of the plant, even farther for large saguaros. Of course the roots of these desert plants reach out considerably further. But watering closer in will provide enough moisture to sustain them through the winter.
To water trees, start the hose three or four feet from the trunk. Spiral it out maintaining a two foot spacing between the circling hose as you go. Extend the circle all the way out to the edge of the branches. This may require several lengths of soaker hose.
If you can't cover the entire area to be watered at one time, then water the tree roots in sections. When your done with one section, then move the hose and begin watering another. Water should be applied until the top two feet of soil is moistened. This can hours, or even the better part of a day.
Be sure to open the hose bib just slightly. Water should drip out of the soaker hose. If you open the bib to wide and the water flow and pressure is too great, water will come squirting out of the hose, too fast to soak into the soil.
Periodically check to see how deep the water has penetrated the soil. To do this, use a metal rod, such as a two foot long metal re-bar, which can be purchased at hardware or building supply stores. When the soil is moistened, the rod can be pushed in to the depth of wetting. However, the probe may strike a rock in soil giving you a false reading. So test several spots to be sure your measurement is correct.
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.
Written by John Begeman, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Arizona,
520-626-5161.
- Updated: February 12, 2006
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