Horticulture Hotline 01/18/21
By Bill Lamson-Scribner
We have had an exceptional amount of rain last year - 2020. Laurie, a regular listener to the radio show (“The Garden Clinic” Saturdays from noon to one and replayed Sunday from 11 to noon on WTMA), recorded a thirty-inch increase in rainfall from 2019 to 2020. That is one wet year! Managing water is very important for the health of your house and landscape.
Starting with gutters, do you have them? Do you need them? Are they clean and functioning properly? If water is running off your roof and draining under your house (crawl space), you may want to consider gutters. Moisture underneath a house can led to mold, fungus, moisture damage and termites. Homes without gutters often get rot around windows when the water runs off the roof and splashes off of plants back onto the house.
If you have gutters, are the plants near the downspouts drowning? Do you need to put a piece of flexible pipe on the end of the downspout and direct the water to a place in the yard where it is not a problem? Could you collect this water in a rain barrel and store it for future use?
A large low area in the yard could be dealt with in many ways. Find the lowest point and put a drain and run the water elsewhere. If there are not any tree roots in the area, you could fill in the area with topsoil. If the area is small enough, consider using bagged topsoil, so you do not bring a bunch of weeds in the soil to your yard. If the area is really big, you could remove the grass with a sod cutter and re-grade the area – adding drains if needed.
If you would like to drain an area very effectively and without having to do a lot of digging, then Turface is the way to go. All you need to do is aerate the area then apply Turface. If you don’t have an aerator, you can just spread the Turface along the surface. We have worked with many customers using this product in many different situations with great results. Turface will help drain large areas and small areas. Some areas that are bigger and wetter you can dig columns with a post hole digger or auger and backfill with Turface. You will also save on the water and fungicide bill with this product.
Using wetting agents can also help get water off of the surface and into the ground.
Hot topics at Possum’s – pruning (what / when / how), moles, fungus, rats, preemergent products and timing, weeds (kill them now), custom soil tests…
Always read and follow product label. It is the law.
