Water and Your Plants - Some Tips for the Monsoon Season

Apart from a balanced combination of nutrients, the right temperature and sunlight, plants need water for growth and production. However, it needs to be understood that excess of this nutrient can spoil the health of your plants and garden.

If rainwater is allowed to stagnate and stand in pots, plantation or lawn, this can lead to the development of fungus generated diseases, like root rot and stem rot, easily. Your lawn grass can turn yellow and lifeless. The standing water can easily kill your precious and loved plants on whom you have spent much time and care.

Apart from excess water, the high winds at this time can also destroy your plants. If you have made prior arrangements to deal with such an exigency you will find your plants and garden smiling and enjoying these life-saving showers.

Lawns are bound to get wet in this season but if you have ensured proper drainage for water then rains will not be able to spoil the beauty of your garden. To ensure that water gets completely drained out of your lawn make a gully just at the end of the sloping end of your lawn about 3-4 inches deep below the level of the soil.

If your lawn has no slope, you can spread sand at a slope (about 3 inches of slope for 100 feet of the lawn). This way there will be no chance for the water to stand and it will flow out easily.

Make arrangements to remove the excess water from your flower beds by making gullies. When the soil dries up a bit hoe the soil around the plants to ensure the roots get fresh air and chances of development of disease will be minimized.

There are 2 reasons water does not flow out of pots. One, if the pots are overfilled with the plant roots, the water tends to accumulate since it is not able to drain out or drains out very slowly. Second, the outlet hole gets closed because of the accumulated water.

To check the density of the roots and whether water is not draining out due to this reason, scratch the soil, and if you find the root system proliferating just beneath the soil surface, it is time to shift the plant to a bigger pot as it needs one now.

Also, you can lift the pot to see if the roots are sticking out of the drainage hole. This is also an indication the plant needs to be repotted in a bigger pot.

How to re-pot a plant

The rainy season is the best season to repot plants. Repot plants whose roots have overgrown, ones in broken pots which need replacement, etc. Remove the soil around the roots and repot in a new, bigger pot carefully along with fertilizer and soil.

If the drainage hole is blocked, take an iron rod about an inch to inch and a half and push this rod through the drainage hole from the top of the soil. The accumulated water will flow out easily.

Because of drainage of water nutrients from the soil in the lawn, flower beds or pots also flow out. This affects the growth of the plants.

When the rain stops add fertilizer to the pots, beds or the lawn to keep up the nutrient levels. Cactus and succulents need to be kept away from waterlogging around them so try to prevent them from direct exposure to the rainwater.

High winds cause plants to fall down Due to damage to the stem tissues the plants do not survive. Plants in pots and bedding can be supported with the help of bamboo stakes to keep them standing. Climbers can be stripped of their excessive foliage to make them smaller and lighter so as to allow them to better face these high winds.

To stop plants getting damaged or uprooted by gusty winds construct or fix a bamboo fencing or any other suitable fencing, on the west side, about 3 feet in height. This will reduce the wind flow till about 10 to 12 feet height.

If you have enough space in your garden then you can plant plants that attain a height of 3 to 4 feet on the west side. Plants like China rose, Mogra, Crotons etc can substitute for this bamboo or other fencing and be a permanent solution for this problem.