KIRKSVILLE, MO -- With the recent dry and hot weather conditions in our area these past few days, many of our Facebook fans wanted to know how to protect your plants and vegetation. This was the topic for Thursday's Facebook Story of The Day.
For local landscapers and gardeners, the hot weather is no surprise due to the mild winter we've just had.
One of the main keys of course is to water your plants, but not as much as you think.
Newly planted vegetation should be watered every day for ten days straight while old and existing vegetation just need to be watered heavily once a week since they are already established on the ground.
"Older and more established plants have a natural way of storing water in their root system. They can do it if you give them a lot of water once a week, they will be able to store that. It's very common to see people over water their plants seven days in a row. You can actually lose plants that way," said Trumascape Chairman Michael Dijak.
It's also better to put four to five inches of mulch around the plant to help retain the water.
"If you put in a lot of water into the base of a plant, it's going to seep down through the mulch into the root system and allow the plant to maintain that water. It's also going to serve as a good sun barrier and help maintain moisture and trickle it down into the plant," Dijak said.
Dijak also advises not to decorate your garden with rocks for it won't allow water to enter your plants.
Another thing is not to water the leaves of the plants because it will burn them out due to evaporation.
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