Gardens throughout Australia have been suffering with long periods of warm and dry weather for centuries. So if your garden at home is not currently looking too well after recent drought, heatwaves or a just a period of neglect, don’t despair it can be rectified.
It may be that your potted plants dry out quickly or your plants have dull or dry foliage, if they do you may have a watering problem. Often dry patches on lawns are also wrongly diagnosed as lawn beetle attack when more often than not it is usually a lack of water. What is actually happening is that most of the water that you are applying on your garden is being wasted. This is due to the soil or potting mix becoming water repellent or hydrophobic.
To check this out, after watering your pots or the soil around your plants simply scratch beneath the surface and see if the soil is moist or wet. If it is still dry then the water isn’t soaking in and your plants are going to suffer and eventually die. On lawns dry patches can be caused by compaction from cars, people, pets, sporting activities or the breakdown of waxy leaves so I always recommend raking up any fallen leaves and then aerating the dry patches first.
The solution to these common watering problems is to get the water to penetrate deeper into the root zone. This can be easily achieved by just applying a quality soil wetting agent to your soil or potting mix every 3 to 6 months.
The easy to use Seasol Super Soil Wetter and Conditioner is an all-in-one wetting agent, conditioner for the soil and plant health treatment. It combines an aquatic safe wetting agent, liquid composts to help improve the soil and Seasol seaweed to promote increased plant growth and development.
For most soils add 50mls or three capfuls per 9 litres of water in a watering can and then apply it to the soil or potting mix around the roots. Or for extremely water repellent soils add 100 mls per 9 litres of water every two weeks until the soil improves.
Colin’s tip to rejuvenate neglected or pot bound plants is to sit them in a shallow bowl or bucket of diluted Seasol Super Soil Wetter and Conditioner for around 20-30 minutes until they revive. Then either pot them up or plant them in the garden.
Seasol Super Soil Wetter and Conditioner has extra soil conditioners that encourage beneficial soil microbes, improve the overall soil structure and increase the water and nutrient holding capacity of the soil. Plus it includes Seasol, which acts as an overall tonic and health treatment for all your plants.
For a waterwise solution to help drought proof your garden use Seasol Super Soil Wetter & Conditioner, the all-in-one health treatment for your plants and garden. Seasol Super Soil Wetter and Conditioner concentrate and the ready-to-use hose-on pack are available at Bunnings Warehouse stores throughout Australia and to find out more go to Seasol.com.au.
