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How to keep your garden cool during triple-digit heat

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAY 25, 2022

Red umbrella over plant

This umbrella is too beat-up to be useful in rain, but it makes excellent

impromptu shade for a plant that's not quite acclimated. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Tips for helping plants cope on 100-degree days Are you wilting? How about your plants?

This week’s early blast of triple-digit heat is just a taste of what Sacramento-area gardeners can expect in the months ahead. Scorching summer temperatures likely will seem magnified by cutbacks in irrigation due to drought restrictions.

It’s time to beef up on ways to beat the heat – and save your landscape.

Yes, you can save water and help plants cope with weather extremes. Start with these basics:

* Stay hydrated! That applies to both you and your garden. Water early in the day – before 8 a.m. if possible – to cut down on evaporation.

* Cycle and soak. Water needs a chance to soak in, especially if you have clay soil. Otherwise, it will run off (and down the drain) instead of reaching roots. Run your irrigation for a short period. Wait an hour or two. Then, run your system again. The water from the second cycle will reach deeper than the first.

* Mulch, mulch, mulch! A 3-inch layer of straw, wood chips, dried leaves or other organic material will keep soil and roots cooler while conserving moisture.

* Shade sensitive plants and developing fruit on tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and squash. Your harvest can get sunburned. Protect from intense afternoon rays with temporary shade such as burlap draped over trellises.

* Wilting can be normal. Some big-leafed plants such as squash may seem to wilt every hot afternoon; that’s OK. They recover overnight. It’s when they’re still wilted in the morning that it’s a problem.

* Check the soil before you water. It may look dry on top, but still have enough moisture in the root zone 6 inches below the surface. Plants can suffer from too much water (especially in containers) as well as not enough.

* Prioritize your watering. Deep-water trees and shrubs, your landscape’s most valuable and slowest-growing plants.

* Switch to drip. Drip irrigation puts water where plants need it – at the roots.

Heat is often on the minds behind Sacramento Digs Gardening. Here are links to several past columns with heat-related advice:

-- Get Ready for Hot Days Ahead

-- Mulch is Good, and More Mulch is Better

-- 5 Hacks for Shading Your Precious Vegetables

-- Hot Tomato! How to Help Your Vines During High Heat

-- Speaking for the Trees: Don't Forget Them in This Heat

- - For Best Roses in Heat, Watch Water and Mites

And if you’re too late:

-- Rescuing a Heat-Stressed Plant

Finally, for the gardener:

--- Too Hot to Think? Follow These Tips

– Debbie Arrington and Kathy Morrison

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tomatoes extreme weather Sacramento peppers wilting coping with heat shade cloth squash irrigation weather gardening vegetables heat triple-digit temperatures

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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