If you're living in a drought zone, you're probably worried about protecting your lawn from damage. However, you might not realize that you need to protect your trees too. You see, drought can cause serious damage to your trees, especially young ones that haven't had a chance to develop a strong root system. Luckily, drought conditions don't have to spell disaster for your young trees. Here are four steps you can take to make sure your trees survive the drought.
Use the Right Watering Tools
If you're just turning your sprinklers on once or twice a week, hoping that your trees will get enough moisture, you might be in for a shock. Trees require a deep watering so that their roots can develop a strong, healthy network. The best way to ensure a deep watering, even during drought conditions is to use the right watering tools. Soaker hoses are the best at providing deep, pinpoint watering for your your young trees. Best of all, you won't lose any of the water to the surrounding area. Instead, the water will soak down into the soil around the trees, ensuring that the roots don't dry out.
Keep the Moisture Where it Belongs
During the summer, the heat can cause water to evaporate quickly. Unfortunately, rapid evaporation can wreak havoc on your young trees. That's because the water doesn't have a chance to stay soak down into the soil before it's evaporated. You can reduce the risk of rapid evaporation by ensuring that the moisture stays in the soil where it belongs. The best way to do that is by covering the area around the tree with natural mulch. The mulch will keep the moisture in the soil, and protect against erosion.
Avoid Pruning During a Drought
When you have young trees, you want to do everything you can to ensure proper growth. You also want to make sure that your trees develop an aesthetically pleasing shape, which requires pruning. However, you should never prune your trees during a drought. Pruning your trees during drought conditions can cause serious problems, even death, for your young trees. Go ahead and monitor your trees growth. Once the weather cools down, have your tree specialist come out and take care of the pruning.
Watch for Signs of Distress
Young trees can suffer serious distress during drought conditions. If your young trees begin to yellow, experience leaf drop, or look like they're wilting, you'll need to have your tree service technician come out and provide immediate care.
Contact a service like Blue Ox Tree Care of Indiana for more information.
After thinking about how to keep some of the flowers in my yard alive, it occurred to me that we had some real problems on our hands. For starters, we had a bunch of overgrown trees that needed to be dealt with. The second thing we had to take care of was the fact that we were really behind on basic yard care. I started talking with friends and neighbors about what they did to make things better, and they recommended a local tree service company. After they came out and made some changes, my yard was gorgeous. Learn more about tree care on my blog.