Watering

Watering may not seem complicated, but whether you get it right or wrong makes a huge difference in the quality of your plants. In a container nursery, where root systems are limited to the size of their pots and everything is exposed to natural weather conditions, we face a variety of challenges when it comes to striking the right balance. Over-watering moisture- sensitive plants is just as problematic as under-watering moisture-loving plants.

Two years ago, we installed automatic timers on the valves of our perennial polyhouses. This has benefited us considerably in a number of ways. For one thing, it has allowed us to get the majority of our watering done in the morning. We set our timers for around 6:00 am. Since we use overhead watering for all of our #1 pots, this gives the foliage the rest of the day to dry off and helps minimize the risk of foliar diseases developing.

It also allows us to do most of our watering before the crews begin pulling orders. Before we used timers, we may have set a row of houses to water for 45 minutes, but if an order had to be pulled from that area, the watering would be interrupted in order for the crew to pull the plants. The crew then may or may not remember to turn the water back on. So the timers have made it easier not only for the watering staff, but also the order pulling crews.

The timers have also been a huge time saver. We not only have the perennials to manage, but also thousands of shrubs that need to be watered every day. Since we don’t have the water pressure available to water everything at the same time, using timers allows us to water all of our perennial houses in the early morning, and then the shrubs can be watered throughout the rest of the day. In the past, we could only water a handful of perennial houses at once because we were watering shrub containers at the same time. This meant that we needed one person to walk around for most of the day, manually turning the water on and off of a few houses at a time. It also meant that we were sometimes watering plants after they were already dry and stressed.

Now, we still need to do spot watering in the afternoons on hot, windy days, but getting the majority of the perennials watered in the morning has freed up a lot of time for us. It has also alleviated stress on the moisture-loving plants that need water every day, because we are able to get water on them first thing in the morning before they have a chance to dry out.

One drawback of the automatic timers is that it can be more difficult to notice problems with the irrigation system. When the water is running in the morning before the crews arrive, it is more difficult to spot a clogged sprinkler, a leaky pipe, or low water pressure in a particular area. It’s still important to run the water periodically during the day to make sure everything is running smoothly, or come in early to observe the sprinklers. But overall, the use of automatic timers has dramatically increased our efficiency when it comes to watering.