The wisdom behind not watering

I rarely water.

For two reasons,

1. I don’t want to stand about watering

2. Also, mainly, because plants are a lot stronger if you don’t.

After weeks of drought, this is good timing to take a deep dive (ahem) into watering.

For a long time, there has been this obsession with watering, keeping everything green and lush. I have lots of problems with this especially in entirely ornamental spaces. It feels indulgent.

You see, time it right, plant out at just the right time, they’ll want to grow away, searching for water and extending their roots deeply to anchor.

Cultivated soil that is rich with microbial activity, fungi reaches deeply, for ground water to bringing it up to plants. Sometimes over metres. In parts of the rainforest, the networks are kilometres long!

It starts and ends with the soil. Care for that, first and it’ll care for the rest. When I first gardened in the walled garden, the soil was so dry and, well, dead. Since then, as I have worked with the soil, with feeds and composting, I have watered less and less, yet my plants seem to thrive more and more. This goes against much of what I learnt and I thought.

When planting out seedlings, I system is to water well the evening before, and ideally plant on a damp day, or with cloud cover. I then don’t water until I see fresh new growth on the plants. If it rains around that point, then I don’t bother at all! Those plants really anchor well and don’t flop on hot days.

Growing naturally with little intervention from me allows plants be resilient to their environment, to make friends with the soil bacterias and fungi and get on with it.

See it the other way around, if you water a lot, I mean more than once a week in hot weather, your plants are, with respect, going to be weaklings.

These plants do not put their roots down deep, they rely and expect water to come easily. Without strong roots, the plants are also less strong, needing support. And I reckon, less resilient, more likely to attract pests and disease, and fungal problems with moist soil and air. Instead plants flower strongly and have more vibrancy.

Planting up gardens with plants appropriate to our soils and local weather, creating resilient spaces full of biodiversity and a light human touch, is regenerative gardening.

I do run a regime of benign neglect but the more I am ‘hands off’ the better the garden works together.

1. Plants undercover

   Anything planted in the ground in the tunnel - like tomatoes, sweet peas etc watering at least every other day, often every day. I fill them up the day before if from a tap, (harmful to microbes, chlorine breaks down in sunlight) then water in the morning.1

2. Seedlings in trays or pots

   These will invariably be watered with watering cans, as above every morning, but only if dried out between waterings.

3. Any really precious plants that look like they need it before they flower, or as they flower. I grow less and less of these needy darlings.

4. Pots

   I empty florist buckets or trays of water, filled with rainwater straight into these.

5. Bags of late autumn chrysanthemums

   But I often forget, so they’ve been watered about 3 times so far.

6. The Compost heap

   When building it or turning. These seems to be me the best use of any spare water.

• It’s counterintuitive, but research has discovered that plants take up water better in the morning, and will continue to do so during the daytime.

• At night time, with moist soil for hours, there is more chance of slug and snail damage and furthermore, fungal diseases.

• During the morning, the plants are rested and the soil is cool, water can be absorbed much more easily.

So that’s it! This week I had a huge plant delivery for different clients and lots of seedlings waiting to be potted on. Despite very high temperatures here, I put everything in to either the shade of the greenhouse (still south west facing so hot!) or under trees and I haven’t even watered daily. With capillary matting in trays and reducing the stress, plants have sat happily and even put on growth! They’ll wait to be planted in the cool of later next week.

A lot of this flips conventional teaching on its head but do try it. You’ll have much more time in the sun lounger!

I can help you in your garden by visiting the hundreds of articles in the library Floral Index here or why not call me to discuss a consultation - either online or I can come to you.

With love,