Watering hosta gardens

[John Polka]

Or you could just do like me and set out rain gauges everywhere and run sprinklers and wait til the gauges fill to an inch
John

[jerryshenk]

I was on-site before...here's the math:

We have a hosta garden that is 18 yds x 3 yds (33 sq yds) and the area by the walk that is 12 yds by 1 yd wide (12 sq yds) for a total of 45 sq yards that are covered by soaker hoses. Each sq. yard contains 366 sq. inches or 1.6 gallons per sq. yard when covered 1" deep. So, when I want to water it, I need to spread 72 gallons across the area. I got a water meter from Home Depot that I can set to 100 gallons and it will shut it off automatically when it gets there.

The math looks perfect, right? ha...the shutoff doesn't work right;) I've tried a couple. I'm guessing the flow must be too low or something. But, anyway, if you have the math so that you know what you want, then you can start estimating and base it on time. You might be getting 5 gallons per minute from your hose so, you need 15 minutes to cover that area. Of course, soaker hoses so much slower so I do 2 hours...no formula, just a pretty random number;)

If I use the hose with a watering head, I can cover a plant that's 3' in diameter (36") then, that's 113 sq inches or a half gallon so, you should water that plant for at least 15 seconds to equate to 1" (I do 30 seconds for most of my hosta and longer for bigger ones - mine are still fairly small). You can time how long it takes to fill a bucket to approximate what your flow is.

Having some estimate of how many gallons of water you are using may be helpful if your wife thinks you're wasting water;) If you can talk intelligently about a subject, you often can win.

[John Polka]

I hope you don't try to tell her that 18 times 3 is 33 lol
John

[thy]

David

Or what about... just place a bucket in the watered area, then when you think it is enough, put your finger into the water in the bucket and see how much water you have given..
See that's easy and very handy

You have given just a little less than it shows, so go for an good inch up your finger

My son roll his eyes when I do things like that, but I allways manage to breake my rain thingys, even they are untuched in the garden.. and it works rather good

[Bob Scott]

As long as I've been gardening I've heard about the "one inch per week". The problem I have with that is different soils will absorb and drain at different rates.
My hosta beds drain VERY fast. I can have the sprinklers going for hours and some places never puddle.
Does the rain gauge saying you've watered and inch still apply to this? It's hard to think I can over water with the way they drain.

[guardbear]

I've read that you can take a can like a regular size tuna can and place it out in the open not under trees where you are doing overhead watering. When the can is full you have watered 1 inch. To be consistent you have to make sure that you turn the hose on so that it delivers the same amount of water as when you measured with the can and your sprinkler has to deliver even flow over the entire area you're watering. It needs to be a tuna-like can however as it has the right height and diameter to measure correctly. Essentially you have a home-made rain gage.

I've used this method and checked it by doing area calculations and flow rate and it's fairly accurate.

Linda

[jerryshenk]

What? 18 x 3 isn't 33;)

[John Polka]

Yes experts say tuna cans work great... I use the little square plastic trays that bird suets come in... I just have them sitting everywhere when I water and run my sprinklers twice a week... I water til they all are atleast a 1/2 inch full of water... some hosta get 2 inches a week some get 1 inch...
John

[isadora]

It isn't the hostas in my garden that need so much water, they could do with less. It's the companion plants, the ferns, astilbes, etc. Arrgh. Maybe I should just stick to hostas!

[boops]

My sytem is on 6 days a week 5 zones 15 minutes each (except if we have rain and its put on rain delay), have a second system on soakers which goes on every other day. Only lost 1 astilbe which was potted and should have been hand watered. I deep water my shade plants once a week by hand.

[Noreaster]

I fear this is something my brain will never be able to comprehend- the math is just too much for me. If you set a tuna can out in the rain it seems like it would take a while to fill up to an inch. If you stood over the tuna can with a watering wand, it seems like it would take no time at all to fill. So if you stood over a hosta with the wand, and gave it the same amount of watering it took to fill one inch in the can, it seems like that is nothing! Gah, like I said, I'll just never be able to comprehend the one inch of water thing.

Is watering by hand better or worse than leaving a sprinkler on for a few hours, in terms of how much water the plant gets. Say you're going for that "deep watering" once or twice a week. I guess that's really what I want to know.

[guardbear]

Hi Noreaster
In terms of watering with an overhead sprinker vs wand I think you'll find differing opinions and in the long run it's whatever people determine works for them. I don't think anyone can tell you how long it takes to water your plants deeply because it depends on your soil and drainage and water flow etc.

In terms of the tuna can let me see if I can give you another picture. It's simply the area that receives water that would be 1 inch deep if you could get it to accumulate on the soil surface instead of soaking in as applied. In your example the wand delivered the water quickly, but it did so over an area only equal to that of the tuna can. Now imagine that 4 to 5 foot hosta and how many tuna cans it would take to cover the AREA under that plant--35 or 40 or??? Now imagine how long you would stand there and fill each of those cans. That is your 1 inch of water to the area under that plant. But the tuna can trick is really meant to act as a rain gage for estimating overhead sprinkling. If you want to know how long it takes for your sprinkler to deliver 1 inch of water to the AREA it is covering then just sit out the can and time it. Wah-lah you have a rain gage.


Ignore the math you don't need it--ya just need to like a little tuna or have a kitty
Linda

[Tigger]

Jerry: Note that 1 square yard = 1296 square inches.

The tuna/cat food cans are great for watering with a sprinkler. I always had to remind myself to gather them up before we had garden visitors! It's the hand watering (or soaker hose) where it might be useful to do the area-to-volume conversions. If your hostas are planted closely together, think of watering the whole area. But with hand-watering you can get away with less, but remember that the water will wick away from the hosta just as easily as it wicks toward it!

One advantage of hand-watering with a wand is that you can get underneath the leaf canopy of bigger hostas and water at any time of day. When the sun's getting to the plants you wouldn't want water beaded up on the leaves.

[jerryshenk]

Good grief! How did I come up with 366 square inches in a square yard, that's crazy! Wow, just look at 36 x 36...it can't possibly be 366.

[jerryshenk]

Has anybody ever used a moisture meter? I forgot about mine...have had it for years. It has a 1-10 scale. I just checked the hosta garden it's it's all in the wet range (9-10) from the surface to the depth of the probe (5") after a long watering this morning. Three feet away from the soaker hose, it's 2-3 at the surface but still 8 or 9 at the depth of the probe. It's supposed to be 100 out tomorrow so I guess that's good preparation but it seems I won't need to water tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what the readings are tomorrow morning and afternoon.

[boops]

I use my finger. if the soil is dry in the top 3 inches-I water.

[Noreaster]

Boops, I frequently have dirt under my fingernails from working outside- but I just cant handle knowing that I'm gonna put in there by doing the finger test.

Never heard of those water meters- sounds like a good idea.

[boops]

I use that test for my potted plants, especially the dwarf meyer lemon tree and the dwarf key lime. I read it someplace that its the only way to see if they need water. my in the ground plants I just look at the soil, if it looks dry I water them by hand. I haven't lost a plant yet, just one astilbe which as we know love to be soaking wet all the time. Please excuse the quality of the pics-my camera lens kept fogging up from the humidity.

[Linda P]

As long as I've been gardening I've heard about the "one inch per week". The problem I have with that is different soils will absorb and drain at different rates.
My hosta beds drain VERY fast. I can have the sprinklers going for hours and some places never puddle.
Does the rain gauge saying you've watered and inch still apply to this? It's hard to think I can over water with the way they drain.

You make a good point, Bob. I don't care how many forumulas you come up with, or how many mathematical equations you work out, it comes down to knowing
your garden, and experience is the best teacher there. My oldest hosta beds are 25 years old. I seldom water them anymore, since the roots are massive and they seem to weather even a prolonged drought without too much trouble. The hostas there are Royal Standard, some unknown Fortunei types (probably Obscura or Hyacinthina) and a few Undulata Albomarginata, you know, the hostas that got people thinking you can't kill these things. The next oldest beds were started in the late 90's, and contain some cultivars that I really like. I water them in the same rotation with the rest of the garden. Does it make sense that a young hosta bed is going to need more care and water than an established one? I pay more attention to those, and quite often water them at the beginning and again in the middle of my circuit. It means more hose dragging, as I have to haul the hoses over about 2 acres, but there are plants that I don't want to lose if I can help it, including many of my own seedlings, and some special plants from friend's hybridizing efforts.

[hostaanita]

I water at least a couple of times a week in the summer. Best in the morning I think...slugs are my problem . The more I water the better hosta growth I get.I love how they look when watered and it gives me time to enjoy them . I especially like to kept the new and the little guys well watered.