{"id":12843,"date":"2012-04-18T00:30:58","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T07:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12843"},"modified":"2012-04-17T08:46:47","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T15:46:47","slug":"soil-management-for-drought-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/articles\/design\/soil-management-for-drought-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Soil Management for Drought Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/sallypics\/184751695\/\" title=\"Dry garden with arbor by ~My aim is true~, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/44\/184751695_f6d2289be9.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Dry garden with arbor\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Much is said about collecting and conserving water during drought conditions. Careful management of your soil and garden structure can achieve many aims without recourse to extra water.<br \/>\nIncreasing your soil&#8217;s water holding capacity and reducing the evaporation and consumption of water will make significant management improvements during drought conditions.<\/p>\n<h2>Soil Conditioning<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Dig in organic matter which can dramatically increase the soils water holding capacity.<\/li>\n<li>Mulch heavily  &#8211; 3-4&#8243; of composted bark or garden compost reduces evaporation and discourages weeds.<\/li>\n<li>Do not walk on heavy wet soil in winter. This causes compaction damaging the structure and reducing the capacity of the soil to hold water.<\/li>\n<li>Stop digging or cultivating soil by the end of March. Hoe only the weeds to reduce evaporation.<\/li>\n<li>Erect barriers to stop valuable dry soil from blowing away<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Management of Growing Conditions<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Catch &#8216;run off&#8217; on slopes by building up a soil damn to keep the water we do get.<\/li>\n<li>Build a water retaining depression around plants to form a &#8216;water saucer.&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>Remove weeds promptly as they suck water out of the soil.<\/li>\n<li>Use fine compost in large pots and baskets with water storage granules<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Soil &#038; Crop Selection for Drought Conditions<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Delay new tree and shrub planting until Autumn when more natural water should be available. If watering water at the base of the plant at cool times.<\/li>\n<li>Choose drought tolerant plants like Mediterranean or arid region varieties. <\/li>\n<li>Reduce &#8216;water greedy&#8217; crops &#038; bedding plants like begonia, fuchsia and lobelia to a minimum. Pelargoniums and Livingstone daisies need less water.<\/li>\n<li>Lawns can be thirsty, keep the grass long to reduce evaporation and do not worry about brown patches.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Credits<br \/>\nDry garden with arbor by ~My aim is true~ CC BY 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Increase your soil&#8217;s water holding capacity and reducing the evaporation and consumption of water will make significant management improvements during drought conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}