Seeing a patch of heavy thunderstorms on radar headed for my home, I hurried home on Monday night a bit earlier than usual. I struggled through heavy rain almost half of the way home. Then by the time I got home, it had blown over.
I had left the door and window of Lyndhurst open. I cleaned up the window sill area with a water soaked and partly dry cloth, then mopped up a bit of water near the door threshold with the same cloth. I reoriented the black fan a bit, then closed the doors and window. But I don't know if that did much good, rain had not resumed by 4am and there is no clear evidence it rained while I was asleep either.
I got out by 11 am to re-open the door and window, and noticed my Catawba Crepe Myrtle next to Lyndhurst had toppled over.
I'm not so worried about the toppling over because that tree is still in its 20 inch container pot, just with the bottom removed. The nursery staff told me I could keep the tree in that pot for up to 3 years. Most of the roots of the tree will be inside the pot for years to come. So if it tips over, there's no damage to the main roots inside the pot, just the few thin roots that have grown down to the soil. I did see 2 such roots, white in color, and about 1/4 inch in diameter. They had just barely got past the bottom of the pot.
But before putting the pot back up, I scraped more of the soil underneath, so the pot would be sitting slightly deeper into the ground, and be more level. While doing so I removed a few rocks. Then it took a few tries to get it rotated back to nearly the same position. But it is more level now, better in many ways. The tree is very handsome, I think it may have already grown some in the week it's been on my lot, and it looks heathy despite a few aphid-crunched leaves.
Since I understood the rain to be no more than about 20 minutes, and less than 0.3 inch, I watered both trees as usual, using hose nozzle on the Catawba and hooking up the soaker hose for the other tree. I figure that a gallon of water is about 1.5 inches of a square foot. 4 gallons of water is therefore about 1.5 inches of 4 square feet. My usual watering is therefore about 1.5 inches on the tiny areas I water for the tree. I'd say if it rains much less than that, I still need to water the tree at this early stage.
I am following recommendations that suggest 4 gallons daily for one month. A friend of mine at work is telling me to ignore that, and just test the soil. My counterargument is how do you know what level of dampness is correct? She us very vocal about her concern that I may kill my plants by overwatering. She's so vocal about this, not wanting to let up on the issue, I tend to think she's overreacting, and much of her concern stems from fear about water waste. Her stridency tempts me to water more, just to see where the limits actually are, but I'm not going to do that, I don't want to harm the tree, I just plan to do what I think is right and ignore all these people who can't seem to keep their friendly advice from turning into a scold. If I do kill the tree by following my own intuitions about it, I can always get another one. Note that I really don't want to do that, it's a big hassle to start over, but it's better than ruining every single day with anxiety.
She says she has killed a plant (I am not sure if it was a tree) by overwatering, it got some kind of fungus.
Another of my thoughts is that I only water ONCE a day. Then, during a hot day, the top of the soil does dry out in 100 degree heat. It does in fact feel mostly wet and dry at the same time by finger. But it is not saturated until after I water.
Last night I got two more soaker hoses (one spare and one reserved for the Catawba), a second water timer, and a 4 outlet brass manifold. If it had not rained I might have hooked them up.
Now I have to water both trees separately, a process that takes about 2 hours a day, even though I'm not holding the hose all the time, I need to wait and move the hose and ultimately shut off the water. Once I get the manifold connected, even without the timers, I could run both at once. With the timers working, I could just let them do their work. However daily checkup is still a good idea.
The tree people came out today after I had left for work, so I have not yet seen how the new trimming looks.
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