Hank, how do you water?

eastwood2007 · Post by **eastwood2007** » Jul 26, 2007 2:14 pm

Hank, if you please...could you tell me what system you use to water your hostas? Do you water overhead, drip, soaker hoses? I ask, because I know you are an advocate of water, water, water, and because your hostas leaves always look good.

Would you share?

eastwood2007 · Post by **eastwood2007** » Jul 27, 2007 12:34 am

Bumping, so Hank sees it when he does the POTD tomorrow...

hostalady · Post by **hostalady** » Jul 27, 2007 8:12 am

Helping to bump this up, because I would like to see what Hank has to say too.

But if it helps any. My DH and I put in a misting system in two of my largest hosta beds this year and I can see a tremendous difference in the hostas in those beds vs. my other beds (which I now know that I need to water more often than I use to). I just turn on the misters for 20 to 30 minutes every other day and they are looking better than ever.

Anne

Homer_Zn5 · Post by **Homer_Zn5** » Jul 27, 2007 8:42 am

I am looking at putting in an irrigation system at a building where my wife will be having her business. The grounds have some really nice raised beds with fantastic, mature vining plants that grow up on a trellis (Trumpet Vine [Campis], Wisteria, Climbing Hydrangea, etc.) and some various perennials that grow throughout.

I have always used soaker hoses here at my house, and I have installed soaker hoses in the bed this summer as a quick fix, but I have found that I tend to get runoff in certain beds with the soaker hoses. Since this is the first time that I have to pay for water, and I want to keep the expenses down for the building, I am leaning toward using the poly tubing with drip irrigation emitters at the base of each plant.

Anne, I have seen the little misting nozzle accessories I can get with these systems. Can you tell me if you think the misters give you an advantage over just the drip emitter? I am thinking that in my application, a misting head will result in more evaporated water and less getting to the plant. Plus, we have very hard water here, and I can just see those nozzles getting clogged with lime.

Any input by everyone would be great. Thanks.

Wild Dog · Post by **Wild Dog** » Jul 27, 2007 9:06 am

I just turn on the misters for 20 to 30 minutes every other day and they are looking better than ever. Hostalady

Two or 3 years ago while trying to determine the outside limits of water use I sat up a mist system on some hosta. I wasn't trying any form of good care. These experiments were designed to water to the point of pain.
1. Hosta were floated hosta in water with their feet in water 24/7 365 with no ill effect.
2. Hosta were placed in a created bog and grown with constantly wet feet.
3. Hosta grown in pots that never drain, again constantly wet feet.
4. A mister was directed at several hosta, the mister was on 24/7 all summer with no ill effect. In fact they looked great.

Again the question was not good care, the purpose was to determine when conditions reached over watered bad care. Temperatures were taken inside the mist zone and my memory was the temperature was lowered by as much as 20 degrees since the temperature was only a curiosity careful measurements were not taken or recorded.

Conclusion; Water is the answer to good hosta care and the mister may be the best answer of all. Further the temperature reduction may be the most important part. I’m suggesting misting daily at the hours when you can predict high temperatures, usually 2-4 in the afternoon. When you do this please report exactly how you mist, when, how long and what time.

2nd Conclusion; Hosta are “Heat Intolerant” not “Shade Tolerant”.

I posted much of this in the past so this is abbreviated, if you want anymore detail let me know?

hubble · Post by **hubble** » Jul 27, 2007 10:48 am

bump for Hank.....

Hank Zumach · Post by **Hank Zumach** » Jul 27, 2007 10:53 am

Hi--I use oscillating overhead sprinklers. I tried to use soaker hoses in some of our beds but the drainage is so good that I only ended up with a narrow strip getting the water. Our beds are large enough that anything other than overhead sprinklers would probably not work very well.

I hope this answers the question. If not, let me know.

Wild Dog · Post by **Wild Dog** » Jul 27, 2007 11:15 am

I am thinking that in my application, a misting head will result in more evaporated water and less getting to the plant. Plus, we have very hard water here, and I can just see those nozzles getting clogged with lime.

Keeping mister clean and operating is a problem regardless of water hardness and harder if the water is hard. Water systems will build up biotic growth that will interfere with the misting nozzles.

Call a greenhouse supply house, find a greenhouse using misters and talk to them. Of the various methods of watering, misting is the most labor intensive by a factor of maybe 10 to 1, don't assume this is right. There is a greenhouse in Indy that will help you understand misting.

I like the idea of misting for the hosta and found it worked well but it is quite a project to do on a large scale.

eastwood2007 · Post by **eastwood2007** » Jul 27, 2007 11:21 am

Hank, that answers the question beautifully! I've noticed in all your posts that the leaves all look so healthy and unmarred by brown spots, etc., even taken at various times of the year, so I wondered if you were using a watering system that didn't wet the leaves so frequently.

Could you tell us how often you water? Also, what type of water you are using? Is it municipal water? Well water? Pond water? Lake water?

The reason I ask is that I use water from our pond to water. I was considering a soaker/drip method to keep water off the leaves, but as it is straight pond water there is alot of particle matter and moss that can clog narrow openings. I frequently have to clean my hose-end filters and sprinklers to remove clogs and was confident that in a very short time the soaker/drip system would be clogged. We have misters we use for our dog pens when it gets hot and they clog as well, besides the unattractive draping of water lines, etc.

Oh, also, could you share what time of day you usually water?

Thanks in advance! I appreciate your willingness to share your expertise with us thru you POTD's and other posts...

hostalady · Post by **hostalady** » Jul 27, 2007 12:49 pm

Homer,
I will try to answer your questions as best I can. The reason I went with the misters rather than the drip is becasue to my way of thinking the drip method was more for individual plants rather than a group of plants. I didn't do any research on it since my husband was willing to do it I just jumpped on it before he could change his mind

But from what little I did read every reference I saw for the drip nozzels had a picture of a potted plant with it.

As for evaporation, I run my system long enough to just keep the soil from drying out. The type of soil you have will have alot to do with how long you will need to run any type of watering system. My soil is compost rich but I have added pine bark to to help with the drainage. But it is still somewhat water retentive which is why I don't have to run it every day. Here in North Carolina we have some pretty hot days and the sun can be brutal, and for that reason on the really hot days I turn on the misters just to cool off the hosta.

I don't know anything about hard water, so I can't comment on that, but I do have a suggestion. The misting/drip nozzels screw on and off very easy so maybe you could take them off and rinse every so often with something like CLR??

Also I know what you mean about your water bill and all. But if we are going to have our gardens, we know that we are going to water them......soooo why not do it in a more efficent method. You won't use as much water with it and you get a much better spread over the plants, my plants have never looked better. And it's alot less work on me since I don't have to keep moving a sprinkler around.

There are only 2 things more that I can tell you, one is you can either dig a trench for the tubing or lay it on top of the ground and cover it with some type of mulch (I picked the mulch, that way later any problems that come up, we won't have to do any digging to fix it) and two...run water through all the tubing before you put the nozzels on to make sure there is no trash or anything in the line to block the nozzels (we learned that the hard way).

I hope this has helped some.....
Anne

Ginger · Post by **Ginger** » Jul 27, 2007 2:10 pm

Eastwood, just remember that Hank is up north. The time of day he waters may not work as well in the lower states. Just keep it in mind!!

Ginger

Hank Zumach · Post by **Hank Zumach** » Jul 27, 2007 3:17 pm

Charla--We have our own well system. I don't know the exact hardness but it not too bad. I try to give the garden an inch of water a week, either from rain or watering. In order to give an inch of water from the hoses takes 2.5 to 3 days, about 14-16 hours a day, from two hoses. The wind blowing the spraying water away from the beds affects how long a given area has to be watered. I shut off the hoses during the night.

jobranch · Post by **jobranch** » Jul 27, 2007 6:11 pm

I have been considering a drip system since we have had extremely bad droughts two years straight. I have just about had it with soaker hoses. The water pressure is good at the beginning of the soaker hose and at the end it is almost useless. Which brings me to my question, what is the water pressure on your soaker hoses?

Jeff