A heat wave makes plants rejoice at first. But the gardeners fret and have to water, water, water.
A little sunshine, a little rain, and a warm temperature (not too hot) would be ideal. But gardeners, like most other people, live in reality though we want to hope for something ideal.
So when midsummer has come with a vengeance and has brought on a heat wave,
gardeners resort to lugging water hoses and sprinklers around to keep some plants from "over-enjoying" the blast of sunshine and skies with not a wisp of whiteness.
Gardeners, at first, welcome the days of sun without the rain. That's after a long season of clouds and sporadic showers, and when early summer still feels like early spring.
But the days of pure sunshine linger, and the mercury rises to unbearable levels. That makes things different. Gardeners, although very patient and forgiving, start worrying. Then we start complaining about a heat wave. We might even blame climate change or global warming.
Gardeners, luckily, are problem solvers more than plain whiners.
We water, water, water our gardens and trees so they don't dry out, wilt, and die. Some even make some needed trips to the stores to buy hoses, sprinklers, soakers, and a timed watering system so various areas of our property can receive life-saving moisture.
This becomes a bit challenging with the local governments regulating how much and when we can water. We can afford to allow our green lawn to go brown, but we can't sacrifice our flower beds, vegetable patches, and fruit trees. So, we water, water, water judiciously.
Smart watering requires us to schedule our watering, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. A little before sunrise and a little before sunset. This minimizes the unnecessary loss of water due to evaporation.
This also avoids big-leaved plants or those with fragile foliage like our hosta, bergenia, and Japanese maple trees, from collecting water that gets heated by the scorching daytime sun, and eventually, the leaves burn or prematurely turn yellow and brown.
We also don't want our plants going to bed with wet leaves either, much like we won't want to go to bed right after a shower. Wet leaves and stems promote fungal diseases in many plants. Fungi love wet, warm, and dark areas to spread their spores; fungal diseases are our plants' number one enemy.
Aware of the governmental water restrictions and avoiding feeling guilty before neighbors for watering too frequently, we instead water deeply though infrequently. Deep, slow watering allows precious water to seep through the soil at a greater depth where the roots are. So the water gets to where it is most needed, rather than merely evaporating from the soil surface as the sun's heat bakes the top of the soil.
Most of us use the "cycle and soak" method. We water a bit, turn off the sprinklers or tap, then turn them on again a little later. Or, we water by moving from place to place and then return for a re-soaking of certain plants. This helps the water soak into the soil rather than wasteful runoff. We also don't want certain plants' roots to "drown." Water-logged roots may induce root rot in certain plants.
The above ways of watering are not only smart use of precious water resources but also save us time and effort.
And oh, when the first rain comes after the extended heat wave, hurray, we all rejoice.
We are happy for our plants. We are grateful for the break in our tedious watering. Watering, honestly, is no fun.
Yet, when the rain just keeps coming, we start to get wary. We worry. We whine. We pray for the sun -- and even a short heat wave might become acceptable this time around. And when another heat wave does come, we do get wary. We worry. And we somehow whine. But hey, after all, it's still the middle of summer, for goodness sake.
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