Old timer told me to water my trees at night... big mistake

My neighbor Bob who's been landscaping for 40 years swore I should water my maples after dark to save water. Did that for three weeks straight last summer and ended up with fungal canker on two of them. The nursery in Salem said nighttime watering keeps the leaves wet too long and invites disease. Has anyone else had bad luck following old-school advice like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

david_walker973d ago

Oh man, that exact thing happened to me with my oaks a couple years ago. I listened to this old guy at the garden center who told me watering at night was the best way to keep the roots happy. Ended up with powdery mildew all over the leaves and some bark issues that took forever to fix. My buddy who works at a tree service finally set me straight and said yeah, morning watering is way better because the sun dries everything off during the day. It's wild how much old school advice is just straight up wrong when you actually look into it. I feel like those guys mean well but they're working off stuff their grandpas told them before we understood how fungus actually spreads. Now I only water early morning and my trees have been doing way better.

lee.cora3d ago

Honestly I had a similar thing happen with my tomatoes a few years back. An older neighbor swore by soaking them at dusk and I ended up with leaf mold that spread to my squash too. It took me a full season plus some copper spray to fix it. @jessica331 is right that a lot of that old school stuff is just luck more than anything. Now I'm weird about it and only water everything before the sun gets high, even my lawn.

jessica3313d ago

Yeah, old timer advice is mostly folklore and luck.