Water the garden in the morning

To help avoid and/or prevent root rot, fungus, and even mold on your garden plants (and even lawn). I know this may contradict with some of the information you have been told or thought about watering the garden in the heat of summer. After all you do not want the water to evaporate in the hot sun as you water the plants. It also seems logical to think that watering at night, when the sun is going down, will help hold the moisture so the plants will soak up all the water for the next day…

Unfortunately, this is not what happens with high humidity.

Water the garden in the morning — This is a result of watering at night

From my experience

I wrote about this subject because a while ago I went one of my girl/garden friend’s house where she showed me her cottage garden that was browning and looking rather sad. I had been there a few weeks earlier for a glass of lemonade sitting on the porch admiring the beautiful daisies, roses, and coneflowers…but now the garden was, well, dying. She was distraught and asked me “why did my beautiful daisies die? What is going on with my gardens?” So I asked questions and she said “my other friend who is a master gardener said it could be too much watering”. I said yes it could be (and water is usally the first thing I check) but the soil is not soggy so I walked around looking at her other annuals, perennials, and potted plants. I saw many of her plants were either drooping or turning black so I reached over to pull up what was left of the daisy plant and discovered there were no roots. So I said “maybe it is critters in the garden because voles eat roots” but something told me that was not it.t

Walk around the garden on a regular basis

So as we are walking around looking at the gardens and many of the plants were wilting, she said “oh I have to water the garden”. I said “water, now? it is getting dark”. She said “yes, I water every night and soak everything like my master gardener friend said”. I blurted out “I discovered your problem! It is root rot because you should never water at night”. She said “what? I thought watering at night helps the plants so the water doesn’t evarporate”.

I felt so bad telling her that you should never water the garden at night and that you should water your garden in the morning to avoid root rot, fungus, moss, mold, and other garden issues. My garden friend was almost in tears and so I spent the next several minutes comforting her as she was almost in tears knowing that she killed many plants in her garden. I tried to console her and told her that I did this many years ago I learned that watering your garden at night was a no-no because this same thing happened to me.

I want to say that all gardeners make mistakes and we learn what works in our gardens. I have learned many things by trial and error and that is why I started blogging- to share my experiences with you. I feel very blessed to have my green thumbs and love that I can work with nature to grow beautiful flowers and plants. I love attracting the birds, bees, and butterflies.

Let’s talk

If you ever have a gardening question or just want to share an experience, feel free to contact me. Thanks for stopping by and you can check out my other blog The Garden Frog Boutique where I share more projects both home and garden and even a few recipes every so often. Talk to you later and happy gardening!