Watering Your New Beautiful Trees and Shrubs

Hot and windy weather can be very stressful for newly installed beautiful trees and shrubs.  Newly planted trees and shrubs require more water because they have such a small root system. The root system is actually a very important source of both absorbed and stored water for the plant.  Roots need to absorb enough water from the soil to support the plant daily, and much of a young plant’s needed nutrition comes in as dissolved nutrients within that soil water. 

Hot, windy and dry weather depletes soil of its moisture, making newly planted nursery stock very susceptible to root mortality!  Once roots desiccate, they die.  The more roots that are impacted by desiccation, the less water is absorbed and translocated up to shoots and leaves.  This leads to wilting and stunting of leaves and eventually, leaf drop and stem dieback.

To prevent root desiccation, newly planted stock requires irrigation every second day when temps are 29C or greater, especially when conditions are windy.  Winds can significantly accelerate the rate of evaporation of soil moisture, especially when its hot outside. See the chart below for some suggestions on how to water your trees with the irrigation system that you have.