You are standing in your air conditioned home looking out the window. It is 112 degrees outside. This question suddenly pops into your thoughts. What can you do to help your landscape and container plants make it through the summer heat and monsoon?

 Water is the first thing that comes to mind. Then how to protect container plants from overheating.

So lets deal with watering. Hot air, a breeze blowing through the yard and your plants are drooping. Wilted. You take the garden hose and give them a drink. The next morning your plants look great. All standing up nice and tall. Leaves are all open and looking crisp. But in the afternoon the drooping and wilting return and so does the garden hose for another round of drinks. You continue watering each day to perk up your plants and in about two weeks some start to die. It is attributed to the hot weather. Wrong! They died from kindness. They died from overwatering.

In summer we water more frequently and deep. I winter we water much less frequently and deep.

So what is deep? Small plants, flowers and vegetables get watered to a depth of 12 inches. Established shrubs to a depth of 24 inches and trees 24 to 36 inches deep. When the root system has followed the water deep into the soil, we only need to water deeply and infrequently.

What about the rain? Can you turn off your watering system if you get some rain? No. Not unless you received 2 to 3 inches of rain and it all stayed on your property and soaked into the ground. Rule of thumb: one inch of water will soak 8 to 10 inches into the soil. Sure, you might be able to skip a lawn watering and maybe even the small flowers and veggies if you receive one inch of rain. But how about the trees and shrubs? You do the math.

As far as the wilting in the afternoon goes, it is physics pure and simple. The plants foliage is throwing more water out into the air during the day than the roots can pull form the soil and move up to replace it. Look at the plants in the morning. If they are standing tall and the leaves are open and looking good, the watering is okay. If however, the plants are wilted in the morning, give them a drink.

Container plants can take a real beating in summer, particularly if they are exposed to the morning and/or afternoon sun. Consider a container plant as a canary in a cage. It is totally dependent upon you for all of its food and water. Stop feeding and the plant will stop growing and flowering. Stop watering it an the plant will die. When plants in clay, glazed or plastic pots sit out in the sun, the sun beating down on the sides of the pot heats up the soil and 'cooks' the roots. They die and decay. Now there are fewer roots to supply the plant with food and water. When enough roots a killed by the heat, the plant will die.

One way to protect plants in containers that can't be moved to a more protected area in summer is to shade the pot. This is easily done by wrapping the container in two layers of burlap material purchased from your local nursery. Don't pull it tight. Just make a loose fitting skirt around the pot. As fall approaches, remove the burlap and save it for next year.

Container plants will need to be watered much more frequently than the landscape plants. Some, in large pots may need once a day watering. While smaller containers may need water twice a day.