Here is part four of the use organics and wetting agents in your
landscape. If you have missed any of the previous articles on this topic or any
other topic, you can find them at possumsupply.com under the Horticulture
Hotline tab.
A wetting agent is a water management product. Imagine a
bunch of tiny little (microscopic) balloons or sponges that penetrate into your
soil through the tiny cracks, absorb water, expand, relieve compaction , and
then release the water slowly back to the plant. After about a month, these
balloons begin to break down in the soil, like a helium balloon does in the
atmosphere.
The first customer that thanked me for introducing her to a
wetting agent lived in a clay type soil. The first benefit she noticed was
areas that stayed wet in the past seemed to dry out quicker. The wetting agent
let the water go into the ground instead of sitting on the surface where water
usually sat for days. She also noticed that the water that flowed over the curb
to a storm water drain after a rain now stayed on her lawn. For hours or even
days after a rain, her neighbor’s curb was wet from water running off their
property, while her curb was dry and her landscape benefitted from the rain
water.
Wetting agents will make the fine clay particles group
together (flocculate), creating pore spaces where air can get to the roots.
These air pockets are areas where the roots will also grow, then slough off
adding organic matter to the soil and creating a topsoil layer. Every time you
add the wetting agent, these microscopic balloons penetrate deeper into the
soil, creating more pore spaces, and softening that hard clay into a more
forgiving soil. As the roots grow deeper, the roots can get more water and
nutrients from the soil, making the plant more drought resistant and require
less fertilizer.
Once the rains began to slow down, she began to notice the
big savings in her pocket book. She went from watering Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday for thirty minutes a zone down to Monday and Friday for 20 minutes a
zone. In other words she went from watering a total of 90 minutes down to 40
minutes. She cut her watering in more than half!
Because of the clay soil, she had lots of containers and
hanging baskets for color plants and a small herb garden. These plants also
needed far less water. In our brutal heat some of her hanging baskets needed
watering twice a day. With the addition of wetting agents, not anymore!
