Some thoughts on planting Part 3

So, did you see anybody in the woods wandering about with a watering can? Probably not! The reason why is nature provides the watering and plants growing naturally adapt to what they get from the existing rainfall or they die.

In the garden environment the exact opposite happens and a plant that's conditioned by nature to behave in a certain way in the presence of moisture gets confused. The result is stress which in turn will often lead to visible signs such as burnt or scorched leaves, die back and in extreme cases, death (more common than you think and the underlying cause of most examples of Japanese maples dying) . The temptation to increase moisture levels in response to perceived signs of dryness at the roots (the leaves are curling up, I'd better give it more water) just exacerbates the problem; stress levels in the plant increase and a vicious circle is created that's difficult to break out of.

In the wild, Japanese maples receive most of their irrigation during the summer months and during June, July and August rainfall levels of seven inches or more per month are the norm. This amount of water is far in excess of their needs but because they are growing on a free-draining volcanic soil most of the water will pass through but sufficient will be available in the soil for their needs. This level of moisture is what a Japanese maple is conditioned to need for optimum growth.. On the surface (no pun intended!) this doesn't really give us any clues as to what the optimum watering regime for a Japanese maple in your garden might be but the answer lies in the combination of high rainfall levels and free-draining soil. If you were able to check the ground you would find a soil with a specific moisture level that didn't vary throughout the summer months.

Translated into the garden environment, it immediately becomes apparent that the main, indeed the most critical, requirement is the need for a constant moisture level. The actual amount of moisture in the soil is not important and providing it's not waterlogged (and if you've got such a site there is a guaranteed method of growing Japanese maples that I'll cover in a future post), maples can tolerate levels down to almost bone dry. In fact, if I can work out how to upload pictures to this blog over the week-end I'll sort out a few of some plants that have not been watered either by myself or from rainfall for two and a half years and have still thrived! There's no trickery involved and I didn't secretly water them in the night; it happened and they lived.

The point I'm trying to get over here is a very basic concept and more than anything else is the one factor, all other things being equal, that will decide if your Japanese maple is going to thrive or die because only moisture stress will kill.

On Monday I'll go into the mechanics of providing the ideal environment and why watering your maple can eventually kill it.