We made a quick video update of the plant nursery and on how to reduce watering of potted plants in a drought.
In the early summer we had a very unusual drought with no rain for 40 day. For Ireland this is quite severe and temperatures went beyond 30C, extremes which hadn’t been seen since the 1970s. The nursery was full of potted plants that would need watering if it doesn’t rain for 3 or 4 days. We couldn’t quite keep up with watering and we lost a lot of plants in smaller pots.
From this experience we figured out that potted plants can be mulched with an inch of woodchips. Keeping the sun off the soil reduces the need for watering by about 2-3 times, also the mulch brakes down slowly aiding long term fertility and making for great insect habitat. For more on this please look up our potting videos.