From watering via ice cubes to spritzing with hydrogen peroxide: 4 misguided plant health trends
The internet has become a new player in plant care advice.
The internet is full of advice on just about everything, including plant care.
As the director of a plant diagnostic laboratory and expert on plant medicine, I help people manage their plants’ health. Here are four trends I’ve seen online recently that have stood out as being especially misleading or potentially damaging to plants.
People are also reading…
Watering orchids and other plants with ice cubes
Multiple sites claim ice cubes can be used to give orchids a “just right” amount of water. The fact is tropical plants hate cold temperatures. Leaving ice near an orchid’s roots may damage them.
Nearly all houseplants, including orchids, will prefer lukewarm or room temperature water, about 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). Use fact sheets from educational institutions and reputable organizations to determine the correct amount of water and watering schedule for the types of plants you’re growing, and then set a reminder on your phone.
Use a potting medium that drains well and quickly. For orchids, a mix of bark chips and sphagnum moss is much better than 100% soil or coco coir.
‘No Mow May’
Many campaigns have sprung up recently promoting “No Mow May.” The idea is to delay regular mowing for the month of May to provide more feeding sites for pollinators, which are trying to shore up calories after their winter hibernation.
Unfortunately, this practice usually does not benefit pollinators and could damage your lawn’s health. Here’s why:
Mowing more than 30% of a grass leaf at once is never a good idea. Grasses depend on their blades to photosynthesize and meet their energy needs. When more than 30% is lost at once, the plants may not have enough remaining leaf surface area to photosynthesize properly.
Overgrown lawns have overgrown root systems, which require more energy. Failure to provide it leads to increased susceptibility to disease, poor water management and potential collapse. Such damage is pretty much unavoidable after a monthlong “no mow” period.
Few lawns actually contain enough flowers to be beneficial to pollinators, anyway. For many people, the “perfect lawn” is an unwavering green carpet. But that uniformity is useless to bees and other pollinators that require pollen and nectar that other plants can provide.
It’s great to prioritize pollinator health, but the “no mow” trend is best implemented in prairie, field and wetland environments, where there is a lot of plant diversity and flowering plants.
If you’re looking to support pollinator health in your own yard, plant native wildflowers that pollinators will actually want to visit. Most require less water and management compared to grass lawns. Replace your entire lawn or even a small strip. Any amount of lawn replaced is beneficial — and will save you water and money.
Make sure not to mow the wildflowers until they’ve finished flowering. A wildflower patch usually only needs to be cut once or twice a year. Mowing after the last frost in early spring will spread the previous year’s seeds and provide a home for insects to spend the winter.
Using hydrogen peroxide to ‘cure’ plant diseases
Hydrogen peroxide does sterilize surfaces and can reduce bacteria and some fungi. But the rapid reaction that gives hydrogen peroxide its sterilizing properties occurs almost immediately after coming in contact with other compounds. This does not permit hydrogen peroxide to move throughout a plant.
So most pathogens — the organisms that cause disease — will not be affected if they are in a plant’s tissues rather than on its exterior. Applying hydrogen peroxide excessively or improperly may even make plant health issues worse by drying surfaces and killing beneficial microbes.
While there is certainly a time and place for sterilizing surfaces in plant care — like with your pruners and propagation tools — the best defense against plant diseases is proper care.
Water your plants only when necessary and provide proper light and nutrition. Research what your plant likes best from educational institutions or other reputable sources. Routine pruning to increase airflow, proper plant spacing, avoiding single-crop planting and crop rotation are just some examples of chemical-free techniques to reduce plant stress and decrease disease susceptibility.
Diagnosing diseases using phone apps
Many apps exist that use photographs submitted by the user to identify plant diseases and offer solutions.
The truth is, to diagnose most plant diseases, a scientist needs to culture plant tissue to correctly identify pathogens. Only after an accurate diagnosis can they recommend management solutions. I have a pretty strong opinion here, since disease identification is what I do every day. Plant symptoms that accompany one disease may be practically identical to those of another.
The same symptom can be caused by very different problems.
For example, herbicide exposure, viruses, insect feeding and fungal infections can all cause twisted and deformed leaves. To properly diagnose an issue, the plant’s own history, location, site history, time of year and other factors need to be considered before I can take a guess as to what may be contributing to symptoms.
Don’t rely on an app to guess at what disease your plant may have — and don’t act on bogus recommendations. Instead, reach out to your local university diagnostic lab or extension office for support.
Not sure where to go? Start with the National Plant Diagnostic Network’s lab directory. Many, including mine, offer free consultations and recommendations. If you end up submitting a sample to a diagnostic lab, most are affordable — my lab’s fee is US$20 — and will be worthwhile, especially when you consider the cost of replacing the plant with something that could eventually have the same issue.
Nick Goltz, Assistant Extension Educator and Director, UConn Plant Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Connecticut.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Tips for growing a healthy garden during drought
Gardening during dry spells
Many people try to save water just to do the right thing (and save money too). But when serious drought hits, and state and local governments enforce restrictions, water conservation becomes non-negotiable.
So far this summer, nearly 65% of the United States and Puerto Rico is experiencing “abnormally dry” weather, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Almost 43% of those locations are contending with “moderate” drought, and nearly 47% with “severe,” “extreme” or “exceptional” drought. That means more than 109 million people are living under drought conditions.
And a lot of them have plants or yards to worry about.
Unfortunately, it’s a little late in the season to begin trying two of the best ways to conserve water in the garden. First, rain barrels and other rain harvesting methods are of little use when there’s no rain to fill them. Second, xeriscaping, the practice of planting drought-tolerant plants, many of them native to a region, works only if those plants are already in place. Consider both for next year.
Native plants are well-adapted to their climate and more tolerant of adverse conditions like drought. In California, for instance, where roughly 98% of the state is experiencing drought, plants like California poppy, California fuchsia, California lilac and manzanita are among the best native xeriscape plants to use.
Check the EPA’s compilation of drought-tolerant plant resources, listed by state, at epa.gov/watersense/what-plant to find your best options.
Choosing which plants to water
If you’re gardening under water restrictions, prioritize which plants need water most and which can be sacrificed if need be. Newly planted trees and shrubs are high on the priority list. They require regular watering until their roots become established, which can take a full year.
Older trees, especially fruit, nut and ornamental trees, but also evergreens, can suffer from drought, so don’t forget about them.
Perennial flowers, which return year after year and are more expensive than annuals, should be next on the list, along with vegetables in their flowering and fruiting stages. Melons and squash, which have deep roots, can typically get by with less water than crops like corn, which have shallow roots.
Low on the list of priorities should be annuals, which are not long-term investments anyway; crops with high water needs, like beans, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, corn, lettuce and radishes; and plants growing in pots, as they require more water than their in-ground counterparts. None will likely thrive with the little water that can be offered under mandated restrictions.
Watering efficiently
Most plants require an average of 1 to 1 ½ inches of water per week under normal conditions, which amounts to a little more than a half-gallon of water per square foot of garden space. That need could increase, however, during periods of extreme heat, when the soil dries out more quickly.
Regardless, don’t apply your plants’ weekly water needs all at once. Divide it over two or three sessions per week, opting for deeper, less-frequent waterings over daily sprinkles, which are wasteful and ineffective at saturating roots. Watering deeply also establishes stronger, deeper roots that are better able to sustain plants when surface water becomes less available.
Avoid using overhead sprinklers, which wet foliage, pavement and other areas instead of directing water to plant roots. Instead, place soaker hoses or drip-irrigation tubing on the soil directly over roots. Watering cans and hand-held hoses aimed at the soil work, too.
Water only in the morning (or in the evening, if absolutely necessary), but avoid midday, when moisture is likely to evaporate before reaching roots.
Consider using so-called gray water, recycled household water, to water plants. Unsalted water left over from boiling eggs or vegetables provides a nutrient-rich bonus. Dish and bath water that’s not too soapy won’t harm ornamental plants. Just don’t apply it to edibles. And water captured while rinsing fruits and vegetables can be used around the garden.
Other tips for reducing thirst
Keep beds and borders free of weeds, which compete with your plants for water and nutrients. A 3-inch layer of bark mulch, wood chips or gravel around plants will help prevent weed seeds from taking hold, retain soil moisture and keep the soil cooler.
Set mower blades high to promote deeper roots. Taller grass needs less water because it grows slowly and shades the soil. Repair or replace leaky hoses and bib connections.
Some don’ts: Avoid fertilizing plants during drought; This might seem counterintuitive, but fertilizers promote fast growth, which increases the need for water. Avoid using weed killers, which tend to drift to other areas in hot weather; they’re less effective in high temperatures anyway.
Don’t plant anything new, and avoid pruning plants, which stresses them and increases their water needs.
Going forward, consider replacing the lawn with native groundcovers. Incorporate generous helpings of compost into beds and planting holes to improve water retention. Observe the sun-exposure requirements on plant tags (shade lovers need more water when exposed to too much sun). And use more native plants.
Next summer, this could be easier.
For all the latest Life Style News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
Denial of responsibility! NewsBit.us is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
