“You water too much and you make the roots lazy.”
I learned how to water plants at my first horticulture gig. I was a mere student at Michigan State and immediately found a job at the research greenhouses.
I wasn’t majoring in Horticulture at the time, but they were hiring and my ancestral roots urged me on. When I began, they told me watering was ‘the most important job’. Too much water and you drown the roots, too little and they shrivel. Clomping around in oversized waterproof boots, dragging hoses, making fertilizer. It was the WORST! How I hated watering.
I was taught to water based on the plant pot’s weight. This required me to lift each pot and then agonize over whether I thought it needed to be watered. I was a rookie. It was pitiful. Whole mornings would disappear, and I’d still be in house 14, halfway down the first bench, gingerly picking up each 6” pot. I got better. Faster. I found this work in the greenhouse to be tedious and horrific on hot, humid days. Slowly, it ingrained the ability to water any crop, any size pot, any media, in any environment, successfully. It took several years and burned me out on growing before I even began. I found my way back once I forgot the sheer torture of watering a greenhouse full of plants based on pot weight.
One thing I will admit, I am a dry grower. I hear that term a lot from various growers in commercial horticulture. What does it mean?
I wait until the plant is almost wilting before I water. My Dutch Mentor, Ike, used to say, ‘you water too much and you make the roots lazy’. Truth!! I developed my watering style by doing it wrong first and studying the sad results.
I still water by weight. I lift each pot I’m growing, which is in the thousands. I’m fast now and the thoughts about plant type, environment, season etc. flow through my mind so quickly, I don’t even realize I’m thinking about any of it! I pick it up and it either needs watering or not. No more indecision or waffling.
I trained under Floriculture giants, Dr. Royal Heins and Dr. Will Carlson. They led the way in the 90’s with groundbreaking research on daylength, temperature, and flowering. I was privileged to work on their research and witness the results time and time again. The most important thing I ever learned though, came from my hours spent watering in greenhouses 13 and 14. Perennials, Poinsettias, Easter Lilies…..all hand-watered. Before I ever had my degree and my first job, they trained me in the most important part of Horticulture – irrigation management.
