Oh, yeah, getting your shoes or boots stuck in clay mud ain't no fun a'tall!

This brings bad memories of long long ago. I had 3 or 4 horses that I kept for a friend of my aunts. Of course, I was in heaven having horses to take care of and to ride free of charge. He provided everything I needed. We had a really old barn and the soil was clay, I didn't know that then. When the ground would freeze in the winter it was nice to be able to get to the barn without sinking up to my knees in mud but when the ground thawed out, I can not say just how deep the mud would go. The horses walked through it to get into the barn and the mud was terrible. I remember vividly sinking into the mud so deep that I would walk out of my boots when they stuck in the deep mud. It was cold cold mud, too!!This would wake me up at 5am when I went stumbling through the mud to feed the horses before school.

You know, it just doesn't get as cold as it used to, or as I remember anyway. I think it's could be my memory!!! I live about 50 miles from where I grew up but I'm still blessed with this kind of soil. If I make the mistake of digging in my soil before it gets to that just right place, I have clods as big as cinder blocks and they will not till up with the tiller. They'll actually bounce off the tiller like rocks.

Michele, sounds like you have clay like ours. I don't know why, but I just figured your soil would be sandy.

Gotta go hug a little girl, Mona

When you water, do you water at the base of the plant, over head sprinklers or just a hose on the entire plant?

I tend to use a Dramm water wand, with the head facing up, so I can wash off the underside of the leaves. I think it helps wash away spider mites.

I wish I had enough water pressure to use a Miracle Grow fertilizer thing on my hose.

We have overhead sprinklers that have the misting heads. I think most of mine put out 1.5 gallons per minute. There is no way we could hand water all the daylilies here. If I did just mine it would take me a couple of hours to water them to a good depth.

When I decided I wanted to grow daylilies I put in an automatic watering system because I did not want to spend half my time draging water hose from bed to bed. It's the best investment I have made as far as gardening is concerned. If you do it yourself it's not that expensive and you will never regret doing it. I do have a well so I do not have to pay for water, if I didn't have a well I could not afford to water like I do. I water much like Michele does and use the same type sprinklers. The best thing about them being automatic is when we travel everything here still gets watered.

Would love to have a watering system. Be nice to grow some of the moisture-loving plants over which I still salivate. With our not-so-infrequent droughts, though, unless I did have a well (which is a wonderful thing!) they are out of the question, as is a system. The tremendous population increase here in the last 25 years or so has put a serious strain on our water supply. Plus, as of last year, one of the reservoirs from which 28% of North Texas' water was drawn has a zebra mussel infestation and is now unusable. So even if we didn't have the municipally-imposed restrictions these days--which they are considering making a permanent policy--xeriscaping is a small way for me to help. And it is fun seeing what will thrive in those conditions. Like daylilies!

Unfortunately, daylilies like water. They grow and produce better. Yes, some will thrive with minimum am'ts but not well.

I have heard about those mussels Debra. Horrible.

Are they doing anything about it??

I used to water freely from my well. Then I had two neighbors move in with plant businesses. They both use a LOT of water. I am the one that still has water when it is drought, as my well is really deep... 275 feet. Theirs are at about 200 feet. I was brought up in a home with a shallow well, and learned to be really conservative with water.

I tried drip hoses once. Not enough pressure. Plus, it put out a lot of water between plants, which seems wasteful. If I did it again, I would put in the kind with " emitters" ??? Unsure of term.

Edited to change shallow will to shallow well....

All we seem to get are the news stories about how we can't take the water out. Nothing has ever been said about remediation that I can find, other than make sure your boat is clean and dry before moving to another lake.

I feel very fortunate to live where water is plenty after reading your post Debra. Sometimes it feels like it will never stop raining here. Now I see how lucky I am to live where it rains alot.

And I would go insane where it rains a lot. So we are each where it is best for us to be, right?

Just trying to find the silver lining! I'm 'really' getting very tired of all the rain we've had for a month. Can't get a thing done.

Mona, the soil here is strange. At James' most of the yard is the clay, but there is an area he was going to put a pond and they said they couldn't because it was pretty much all sand; don't know what that has to do with not being able to put a pond in but that what they told him. Were I live is real sandy. At my mom's it kind of a mixture.

I had a drip system installed a couple years ago--drip hose with inline emitters every foot snaked through the daylilies and other plants(I think it's probably like what Tabby described in her garden). Before that, I would move impact sprinklers around the garden, let it run for half an hour or so and then move it to another section. Couldn't do it all at once because there wasn't enough water pressure and they frequently stuck and just watered one spot instead of rotating or I would end up watering the street instead of the flowers when the sprinkler wasn't properly adjusted..... With our hot, dry windy summers, I just decided that I needed something automatic. My garden is too big to ask a friend to come by and water if we're out of town and I was tired of feeling like I couldn't go on vacation in August (which is when I really need to escape Kansas!!!!). Last summer I ran the system every day for about 40 minutes/zone and it wasn't enough to keep the plants happy (or blooming or setting seed) but they did live--it was the worst summer I can remember and I was really glad not to have to go outside and move hoses/sprinklers around. This is different than 'soaker hoses' which I've never had good luck with--they either clog up with minerals or split from the pressure. I do get occasional leaks with these hoses (I think critters bite into them looking for water), but all I have to do is cut out the section with the hole and put in a plastic connector. Pretty easy fix. If you cover the hoses with mulch you conserve even more water--although you have to be careful when digging not to cut through the hose.... All in all I've been really happy with the system.

i've been trying to get the front yard flower beds cleaned out for a week. It's rained nearly everyday or threatened to rain. The clay soil is so wet that I just can't go back to cleaning. I got 2 beds partially cleaned.

I don't dare complain. Like you, I'm afaid it won't rain again. One year we had rain, lots of rain, Jan,Fed til March 15th then it didn't rain again to Sept!!! All around us it rained. Even as close as a mile down the road, but we didn't get a drop. We lost grown huge old Oak trees to that dry year.

Last year, by far was the hottest year I can remember. We did get some regular rain but we had weeks that the temps were over 100 degrees every day.

It sure would be nice if we had this weather for the rest of the year. It's been in the mid 80s and lows in the high 50s. Perfect temps!!!

Blessings to all, Mona

Ann, that does sound the same. I have problems with critters biting through dripline too, but not so much that I would change. My experience with soaker hoses was the same as yours - they would eventually cog up with minerals. One nice thing about the drippers is that I can run them on a windy day with minimal water loss which is great in this windy area. I can run the zones long enough to keep the daylilies happy, but I think I have way fewer than you.

Mine are also on zones controlled automatically so I can take a trip without worrying about my plants drying out.

I hand water as necessary. My gardens aren't to big, or too overwhelming and I enjoy doing it. In fact, I rarely use any kind of sprinklers, because I like standing there holding that hose. Might not be the best, but that's OK. I don't water my grass, but will water my trees during extreme drought, and water any gardens that seem to need it,

Also, I have a leaky bathroom tub faucet, and I keep a bucket under it. That water also goes out into the garden every day (was supposed to get it repaired this spring, but the money got spent elsewhere)

As for watering during the day vs at night - I have read that it will cut down on mold & mildew, because everything doesn't stay wet and damp all night long. During the day, things have a chance to dry out before the temps drop and the dew settles in. Me, I water when it is most convenient - but during periods of high humidity, I do make more of an effort to water earlier in the day. I have even seen mold on my grass when it is too wet & cool out.~Jan

Handwatering for me is a kind of meditation. I have a small sprinkler I use a couple of times a year when the baseball bed needs water in the middle of August and I doan wanna stand out in the heat...because, although I AM lazy and like to sleep late on weekends, that bed gets full sun until about 12:30; it is too hot to hand water in the mornings during summer. (Read supposed to water roses earlier in the day, too, to prevent water problems.)

I'm so glad to see this topic. I've been wondering about water too.
I'm currently watering my hybridizing beds twice a week with about an inch each time. I have overhead sprinklers with a fairly fine spray. It takes a couple of hours for them to lay down an inch of water.
I've just finished the Master Gardener training course. We were schooled there to that the best time to water was after dewfall. The thought is that the plants are wet anyway and with the cooler night temps one doesn't lose as much to evaporation. With our daylilies sometimes being night openers though I'll switch to late afternoon watering when they start blooming.

How do handwatering people know when they have 1-1.5 inches of water into the soil? I use a hand coiled hose (easier to drag out and bring back in). Using the 'bubbler' setting so the water will hit only the dirt around the fan/s, it takes time to sink in and i need to stop quickly or it will run off, so I am never sure how much water each plant is really getting.

At times, this means the plants are over- or under-water to their ultimate peril. Other than using a count-down-in-seconds method (but for how many seconds on bubbler setting to make an inch?) ... has anyone come up with a way to know what amount a hand-sprayed hose is delivering?