Top five reasons why watering new plants is so important

Everyone knows that watering new plants is important but do you know why?

Here are our top five reasons to get outside with a hose

• plants take up water through their fine feeding roots. If those roots are in air pockets instead of in contact with the soil then there is no water to be taken up. When you thoroughly water in new plants (it’s best to flood them on the day you plant) the water carries the soil particles into all the air pockets so that all the feeding roots are touching wet soil and that gets them off to a good start
• plants grow top growth when they grow roots and roots will only grow where their is moisture, so applying water to a wide area around the plants is important – arid soil will not encourage root growth and stunted root growth means less top growth
• little roots are delicate things and can die back if they dry out. A wise man (a landscaper with 40 years’ experience) once said to me that you can’t make a dead horse drink out of a water trough – and the equivilent is that once a root is dead it is dead – you cannot bring it back by giving it a drink – you’ve missed your chance and that part of the root is useless
• water is crucial to photosynthesis and when water is lacking, plants will have to use stored starch to build energy. If water is lacking, more starch is used than produced and that makes plants weak and wilted
• We tend to think that plants only need watering in hot weather but actually in cold weather it’s important for a different reason. Water keeps plant cells plump and that protects them from frost damage