10 Garden Strategies When It's Very Wet

Welcome to Heart Tube. My name is Jim Putnam. In this video we're going to talk about some action steps in the garden if you're going through a period of time where the garden's really being over over rained on like you're getting too much precipitation at one time and the garden is just extremely wet. We had a sit earlier this summer we went like six weeks with zero rain it was extremely hot it was like please please please rain and since that moment in time where that kind of broke we have just been getting wild amounts of rain at the time two and three inch rain events for weeks and weeks now and so that it becomes it goes from you know how to maintain you know how to water the garden during really dry times. I made that video earlier this season to now you know thoughts about when the garden gets too wet and you know maybe 10 things that we can think about during that to make sure our plants stay in pretty good shape. What really happens here on a lot of our plants is we have air in the soil hopefully we've been taking good care of the soil and we've been mulching and you know really improving our soil over time and we have air down there and the roots of our plants need oxygen in the soil and when we get these big rainfalls like this it tends the water tends to fill in all those air gaps in the soil and can create situation where we can get root rot in some of our plants. So let's just go through some steps and some thoughts that we might have during abnormally wet times in the garden. Number one thing I'd like to mention is as much as possible and I'm about to break this rule in a minute on number two and I'll talk about that in just a second but I'd really like to stay out of the beds as much as possible because any kind of foot traffic we have on wet soil is really going to compact it it's really going to push that air and water completely you know out of the soil and displace it it's just an opportunity to create a lot of compaction. I really don't I want as much little bed traffic where the plants are as possible all year long if we can help it. We do need to get in there and mulch and we have to get in there and weed but I want as little as possible. We have a path system in the garden that is wood chips and this is where we want to keep the vast majority of our foot traffic and when you're thinking about initial designs for beds it's great to have path system for several reasons. One we can put these lower things along the edges of the paths and then it's much easier to landscape from small to tall with paths with a path system. If you have a 40 foot deep bed it really becomes difficult to figure out what to put in an order so having a path down the middle of something is great for maintenance putting less overall traffic on the roots of your plants and it's also good for just the ease of which to you know picking plants and designing your garden. I just said stay out of the beds as much as possible but you may have some plants that are at risk of being blown over or leaning over or maybe the weight of the water is actually weighting the branches down. Our tree formed vitex right here decided to lean over in a storm a few weeks ago and the weight of the top of it has just absolutely pulled it over toward the house and the ac unit back here. I've got to get in here and take some weight off the top of it and then restake it back this direction or eliminate it or remove it so there's several options but if you're if you've got you know a tree that you think is in some sort of jeopardy and that if the ground's already saturated if you were to get an additional wind event or another rain event that it might fall over this is a good time to be in there staking them and so get in the bed for this type of thing trying to keep the other foot traffic out of it but if you have to rescue something do it sooner than later because you know the next storm that comes along if you get another storm that comes along could be the thing that takes it over. I will eventually I'll have a video up at some point on actually restaking this and getting it cut back and everything if you're looking out for that on the channel. As I'm shooting this video it's right at the end of September about to be October great time of year to be planting in our area but the ground is so wet right now I'm just going to avoid it. We had someone give us this beautiful variegated gardenia while we were on the road this is a plant that doesn't particularly like wet feet and so I'm definitely not planting it again for several reasons if I put a lot of traffic in the beds and I'm standing right on the edge of a bed right now if I put a lot of traffic in the beds I'm going to be compacting the beds when you you need to tamp the soil down back around the plant a little bit you know after we put it in the ground that tamping is just going to go overboard when the soil is too wet and you're going to stamp you're going to stomp all the air out of the soil and create conditions that can be very anaerobic you know without oxygen down there these roots will just die you know in this container it's in a much safer condition because it's in a very well drained plant mix and so it's much better off in this container for now until it dries out just a bit if the soil continues to be moist and you know not wet make sure you're mounding things up a little bit if you do have to get in there and do some planting if you're a landscaper or whatever and you're you're getting paid to plant you need to get a job finished or whatever make sure you're mounding things up a little bit in these types of conditions if you're digging a hole and water's filling in that hole that's a day that's too wet to be planting okay and I've seen this before I've dug holes in landscapes and you know wanted to get a planting job done wanted to accomplish a task and the water you know water started filling into that hole as I was digging it that's not good it's not a good place to be planting a shrub especially something that was grown in such a well-drained soil mix and those roots are so used to having all that air and uncompressed soil around them all of a sudden goes into a spot that's over watered and uh has no air number four on my list of things to be thinking about is containers uh that water these containers this container normally we have our containers up on feet uh so that they have a little bit of air movement underneath them and they can dry out underneath and the water can escape but we did this container as a little project shot the video for it left it here on the patio and the and the bottom hole that's in it's only one hole right in the center of it is likely plugged up because dirt gets around the edges of the bottom of the container plugs them up and then water backs up in them and it may something you don't really know all season because you've been watering it with a water hose and it's you barely been able to keep up with it then all of a sudden you really start to get a lot of water the days are a little bit shorter it's not using it as fast and there's standing water in the container so make sure that you're going and checking any containers that you have and there's no standing water in them try to unplug the bottom of it get it up on feet elevate it somehow because if the same thing as the plants in the ground there's no if there's water displacing all the oxygen in that container the things in the container are likely to rot another thing we can have an issue with and especially here in the south this could be an all year kind of issue is we have a lot of leafy evergreens this is an evergreen dogwood right here so at all times of the year when this thing gets any kind of a lot of water on it or especially any ice or snow or basically anything on it it's in with all these leaves and as thick as this is it's in jeopardy of being pulled down broken apart or possibly even blown over and so sometimes you know when I see this thing really bending down like that I can go out and just kind of gently shake you know one of these branches and take some of that take some of that water off of it and you'll see immediately you know it'll stand up another two three inches so gently shaking the water off of things again gently uh you know will help stand these things back up you know pretty quickly you know don't go out in the thunderstorm and be shaking on your plants like that but as soon as you can get out there because if you have any wind after the storm and it's got all this water on it you can't do anything in the middle of the storm but it is a good idea to just try to relieve some of the weight on it again we have so many of these leafy evergreens they can be in jeopardy at different times of the year so if it was winter time you know and this thing had a had a coating of snow on it I would do the same thing just try to shake a little bit of that snow off if I could while supporting the weight of it you know don't shake it you know end up being the problem and actually breaking it off but just try it gently at first depending on when this wet issue occurs you may have tomatoes or any kind of fleshy fruit that's near nearly ripe it may be a good idea to go ahead and pick those we grow this one tomato called bronze torch it's one of our absolute favorite tomatoes it is finished for the season but I had this one little branch on it this one is notorious for cracking everything you read about this tomato says it resists cracking cracks like crazy when it rains heavily so we go out typically if we're going to get a two three inch rain and pick all of our bronze torch that are kind of close and then let them ripen in the house because otherwise they just crack on the vine and that can be true with a lot of different fleshy fruit you know in all tomatoes pretty much if you're if you're close again as I'm filming this it's late September early October ours are almost done but if you have any tomatoes currently or you know this is the time you know if it's this was earlier in the season this is the type of thing we think about is getting that fruit off these plants before that walk that excess water gets up into that plant and actually cracks the fruit here's a container we actually took the shrub that was in it it was actually a Japanese we took it out and planted it into the into the garden much earlier because we were going to be out of town and didn't want to ask anybody to water this container but this container is plugged up down at the bottom and I talked about that in an earlier step here about making sure your containers are draining well so the plants survive the other issue though is see that water that's in that container is going to be a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and so that's the other reason I need to get these containers drained so get around your garden after one of these rains and make sure any standing water anywhere your gutters are clear containers are clear the little pans under your plants make sure you know dump that water out get as much of this water dumped out as quick as possible maybe you have a wheelbarrow that's collecting water whatever it is get all that water dumped out as quick as possible because the mosquitoes are definitely going to take advantage of this big rain event I think we're up to number eight here definitely take this opportunity to learn how the water moves through your garden and the erosion that it's creating you know where it's actually washing out soil and learn where the water kind of settles in your garden because those are going to be areas that you're going to need to think about either the plants are going to have to be really mounted up quite a bit because if you have any kind of ongoing heavy wet events those are going to be potential problems for the plants that you're putting in that space actually the space that Steph is standing right now we have just kind of discovered over time that the water kind of falls off the lot into the city's property over there and it just stops for some reason and the water just kind of stands where she is there's actually an azalea planted there azaleas aren't plant you know plants that typically want wet feet but we have that thing we have the root ball exposed by about this much on the top and so the plant is perfectly happy in that space so there's a spot we knew was abnormally wet we planted the plant appropriately or alternatively we could have gotten plants that would take wetter conditions or wetter conditions you know wetter conditions in the yard but a lot of your design thoughts especially if you're if this is a new project coming up that is going to be extremely helpful to know how the water is going to get through your garden how things are going to wash away wash off the garden and that kind of thing you can learn a lot from it number nine is getting areas recovered if you have had erosion in the garden uh depend especially depending on the time of year it is in the spring if you have mulch wash away you're going to have all those summer weeds are just going to quickly very quickly germinate uh the roots may be exposed on some of your plants which could be problematic for them in the late summer early fall if if you're if you end up with bare spaces in your garden you can have all those winter weeds like chickweed and henbit and those kinds of things germinating so as quickly as you can get the roots of your plants protected and get a weed cap uh back in the garden you know with some sort of hardwood mulch or wood chips or whatever it is you want to mulch with but get organic material replaced as quick as possible um if you're if you had things wash out of the beds number 10 is a few different thoughts here uh one is if you discover kind of the lower spot in your garden or a spot in your garden that may be negatively affecting your neighbor you know having mulch wash out into their into their area you may consider uh installing a rain garden or having somebody professionally install a rain garden so you can get some of that water down in the ground before it actually leaves your property uh and doesn't you know has any issue negative issues you know you know with mulch leaving your property and that kind of thing we've done a video a couple videos in the past a rain garden over at nc state and a rain garden that was being installed by a landscaper if you want to look those up on the channel to understand what i'm talking about it's just really about putting a basin in your your in your garden that allows a water a place to go and then infiltrate into it get into the ground as quick as possible so you don't have mosquito issues and the water gets into the water table rather than through the city sewer system the other thing is you know you may have a slope you know slopes in your garden or you may live on some sort of slope where water is just getting through it so fast that you need to use some ground cover plants which are probably more overall effective at slowing water down and then mulches because mulch is just you know it's good at sticking to the ground but then you know when water starts washing it's going to take it away so you know maybe looking at an opportunity to find some of those types of plants that will help you with these types of issues and you may discover that you have a few weak plants in your garden that may need to go that you know if you're in an open windy space that you know the plants you know the plants are leaning over things with wispy stems that kind of thing you may discover that the conditions in your space if you combine a lot of rain with a little bit of wind that some plants just will not hold up in those conditions very well and you may need to replace them with some sturdier things in the future or you may want to be reading about them you know before you're purchasing or watching videos on them and seeing if they're the you know appropriate things for the types of conditions that you have including you know whether it's wet spaces windy areas and those two things combined together it's not good for some plants that just have shallow root systems that grow too fast that you know some of those things some of the sometimes we're looking for plants I want something that grows really really fast a lot of times those really fast growing things end up being very weak in our garden spaces so you know keep that in mind fast growing is not always the best in open areas when we combine water and wind together so those were some thoughts that you know we had as we were looking at how you know we had been out of town for a while came back in here and this place was so overly saturated you know there's some projects we want to get on but we're going to wait and delay because we don't want to be putting all this foot traffic in the beds and the place just in general needs to drain a bit and we need to rescue potentially a few things that are clearly in too wet of an area they need to be raised up or they need to be moved to another location because you're discovering all the time something that you didn't expect necessarily in your in your garden and some of the work that you do some of the hardscaping that you do some of the mulching that you do some of the planting that you do may change the way water flows through the garden so you may learn things you know you may have changed or created problems that you didn't know you were creating when you started working on these projects in your garden so thank you guys so much for following along and there's some just ideas to think about you know when the garden is over saturated thanks for watching