Fall Watering
As summer wanes into Fall it can be tempting to walk away from your garden and call it done until spring. However, soil moisture is still important for perennials and shrubs. Learn how to determine if your plants need supplemental water in Fall and if they do, how much and how often to water.
People rightfully consider fall to be the end of the growing season, but that’s certainly not how plants see it: for shrubs and perennials, fall is prime time for root growth. Once they’ve gotten a break from supporting leaves and flowers all summer, they devote their energies underground to the roots. Typically, fall weather is ideal for root growth: sunny, warm days, cool but not-quite-cold nights, and good soaking rains once a week or so. However, the season is notoriously unpredictable, and when we experience an unusually dry fall, there’s simply no getting around it: we must water our plants to help them make the most of the root growing season.
Fall watering isn’t as intensive summer watering – if your irrigation system has been winterized, there’s no need to get it running again. You won’t need to water every day, and you’ll only need to water if you haven’t had a soaking rain for 10-14 days. When you do water, make sure to completely saturate the soil; a hose-end sprinkler is a great choice to make sure the job gets done properly. A thorough watering twice a month during mid-late fall should be sufficient for most soils, though if you have slow-draining clay or rocky soils, you may find that just once a month is enough.
When autumn watering is necessary, evergreens deserve extra attention, as do plants that were added to your landscape that same year. New shrubs and perennials haven’t yet developed a substantial root system, and helping them take the best advantage of autumn will pay big dividends next season and beyond. Evergreens, with leaves present year-round, never get a reprieve from the drying forces of sun and wind. However, when the ground is frozen, their roots cannot take up water to replace what is lost through the leaves. As such, it is vitally important that evergreens of all types, but especially broadleaf evergreens like boxwood, holly, and rhododendron, enter the coldest season well-watered and free of stress. In fact, these plants are candidates for fall watering even when rainfall is normal, as it can minimize or even eliminate the unsightly browning that often occurs in winter with these species.
One final tip for happy roots any time of the year: mulch. A 2-3” (5-7.6 cm) layer of shredded bark mulch should be in place around all of your plants by the time winter rolls around. Mulch fosters rapid root growth, and maximizes the benefits of fall watering, whether you provide it or the rain does. Once the ground begins to freeze (or rainfall returns to normal if you're in a warmer climate), you can finally devote your energies to more seasonally appropriate activities, like watching football and making apple pies.
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