Just as every masterpiece needs a frame, likewise, your favorite masterpiece, i.e. your garden also needs a ‘Hedge’. A green thick sheet of dense hedge is a perfect treat to eyes. These dense hedges not only give that extraordinary look to your garden, but they also act as homes for many birds, small insects, tiny mammals and so on.
You need to make sure that you care for the hedges just like you do for any other plant in your garden. You have to follow many steps to keep the hedges of your garden fresh and lively always. Along with timely pruning, watering the hedges properly is also very important.
Here, at Best Hedge Trimmer we take fully care for your garden and hedges.
How to Water Hedges ?
Pruning and watering are interrelated to each other to a great extent. Hedges that are often pruned need more watering, on the other hand, less pruned hedges need less water and fertilizers. When it comes to watering the hedges, there are many things that you need to keep in mind. Few of the tips are mentioned as below.
Best Watering Time
Just like you even plants have specific times for specific tasks in the whole day. Hence, to give a fresh good morning wake up call to your plants, its best to water them in the morning, before the sun starts getting hot.
Watering Roots Rather Spraying
Spraying water on top of the fence may remove the dust and other grits from the top of it, however, doing so is an easy invitation for fungal problems on the leaves. Hence, the best part to avoid this would be to water the hedges at their roots. Roots soaked in water provide more strength to the plant.
Water Hedges – Drip irrigation
This is one of the best methods of watering for hedges. This method enables watering directly to the soil. Drip irrigation has a line of plastic pipe under the soil with small holes. These holes enable watering directly to the roots of the plants without even being directly visible like hosepipes or sprinklers. The advantages of drip irrigation are as follows:
- You don’t have to wait for long hours in your garden watering the hedges with hosepipes and sprinklers.
- Even amount of water can be supplied to all the roots of the hedges.
- The growth of weeds can be controlled.
- No worries of enough rainwater or excessive drought conditions.
- Above all, you get a green, luscious, and fresh hedge for your garden.
Sprinkler Irrigation
Sprinkler system can be beneficial for your garden to cover a wider space. However, many times this fails to provide the water supply to each and every bushy area. Hence, this can end up with fewer water supplies to the plants and indirectly hamper their growth. Thus drip irrigation is a better choice than sprinkler irrigation for hedges.
Water Hedges By Hand
If you have a small area of the garden, then you may opt to water the hedges with hands. Watering by hand the most traditional method and by doing so you would be able to provide attention to each and every corner of the hedges. This also helps you in preventing wastage of water. Though this is beneficial, the biggest drawback of watering by hand is that it consumes a lot of time and in addition to this the watering cans are heavy to move around with.
How to Determine The Right Amount of Water Required
Anything in excess or less is harmful to the plants. Even watering should be done in adequate quantity as required. Now you might wonder how you can estimate the exact quantity of water required. This actually depends on various factors like – the types of plants, soil, climatic conditions, and exposure of the hedges to the wind, sun and other natural influences that can hamper its growth and so on. You need to take care of the below conditions while watering the hedges;
- If the soil of your garden retains less water, then the hedges need constant watering. On the other hand, soil that can absorb water and remain wet for a long time does not need frequent watering.
- Check for the leaves of the plants of the hedges. Plants with think leaves need less water, however, plants with small and delicate leaves need watering at regular intervals.
- Flowering hedge and thick-leaved hedge both require an equal quantity of water for good growth and health in clay soil or sandy soil.
- Hedges in regions with high winds or direct sunshine need more water than those with cool breeze climatic conditions. You need to analyze the effect of sunlight on the leaves of the hedges. If you find the leaves going dry very soon, then you need to increase the amount of water for the hedges.
- As mentioned above watering in the morning before the sun getting too hot is best. However, the other time for watering the plants can be in the evening. This helps the plants to sit on a damp surface the whole night. However, you need to avoid watering the plant during the night. This is because the water takes time to penetrate in the soil due to lack of sunlight. This, in turn, would end the plant sitting in water for a long time which can cause exposure to unlikely fungal diseases.
How to Proceed With Hedge Maintenance
Hedge once planted needs heavy care and nourishment at least for one year. Regular watering with appropriate mild fertilizers would help them grow beautifully. Pruning of hedges at regular intervals would boost the growth and keep them in good shape. However, before thinking about pruning you need to understand the type of plant and take appropriate steps accordingly. After one year of proper care, though hedges do not need much attention like other plants, still you need to regularly check the health condition of the plants. This way you would be able to take effective actions in case of any problems identified.
Hedges not only add beauty to your garden but also protect your premises. Hence, caring for hedges is necessary to make sure that they remain lively, strong and green forever.
