Tree Care Tips: How to Water Trees During Hot, Dry Periods

The trees in your yard can bring many benefits including, increasing your property value for years to come, so it’s important to treat them right! Between droughts, hot periods, and the dry weather that winter can bring, it’s important to practice smart tree care by staying on top of your tree’s water levels. It depends on which species of trees you have, but some can take anywhere from 40 to 100 years to mature – making them a long-term investment that needs careful tending to. Here’s how to water your trees as part of a proper tree care regimen.

Check Your Trees’ Water Levels

To gauge whether a tree needs to be watered, check the soil surrounding it by placing your finger into the ground to see if it feels dry or hard. If so, it’s time to water! If the soil has still retained some moisture, be sure to check back every week or so and add water as necessary.

Water Your Trees Using the Right Techniques

If you’ve checked the soil and determined a tree needs water, there are first some things to keep in mind. When it comes to tree health, over-watering can be just as bad as under-watering, for example. Here are tips for how to water trees properly:

Water less frequently – Providing a tree with larger amounts of water once per week tends to promote better growth than watering more frequently at smaller amounts. Let the hose run moderately for 5-10 minutes to produce the 10 gallons of water needed. You can also do this with a sprinkler.
Water the roots – Tree roots absorb water into the tree, so avoid wasting water on the leaves of the plant.
Watering in the fall – Fall is when you should start thinking about tree pruning as well as increased watering to prepare trees for winter by giving them healthy root systems during this dry time of year.

Keep Trees Healthy Through Droughts

Prolonged droughts can weaken trees, leaving them susceptible to pest infestations and dead limbs that require removal. Mature trees can take years to replace, while stumps left behind create eye-sores that often require grinding for removal. So if you’re trying to prioritize where to use water in a drought, your trees should be high on the list.

Young Tree Care

Young trees are still growing and require extra care to thrive. Saplings should be watered with 5-15 gallons of water weekly from the period between April to October, but this can be reduced to once every other week from November to March.

Mature Tree Care

Monthly watering from April to October is usually enough for mature trees during a drought, but if you can afford to increase the rate to twice a week, do so. If you have deciduous trees, remember they lose their leaves during the fall and don’t require monthly watering from November to March.

No matter the weather conditions, a proper watering regimen should be followed for your trees to flourish. With the right watering techniques, your trees can remain lush even through droughts, hot periods, and prolonged stints of dry winter weather.

For over six decades, Townsend Residential has provided vegetation management and residential tree trimming services in the greater Indianapolis area. To schedule reliable tree care services, contact our arborists today!