After living through two years of drought we have become experts at water use and conservation. There are efficient ways to water a plant. Long, slow drinks are the best. An inch of rain, falling at a steady pace, penetrates about eight inches to a foot of soil. A good watering should do the same.

Position your hose at the edge of a planted tree. After half an hour, dig a little to see how much your soil has absorbed. This will tell you how long it takes to water your tree or shrub. In order to encourage uniform root growth, you should either move your hose around as you water or change the spot each time. Putting the hose in the center of a shrub or at a tree trunk is not a good idea because it doesn’t encourage the roots to spread. Short sprinkles of water that penetrate an inch or so stimulate root growth only at the soil surface.

A two-inch layer of bark mulch around your shrubs or trees will drastically reduce water loss. Mulch keeps soil cool and prevents drying out from wind and sun. Remember to never put mulch up against the trunk of a tree or shrub.

Some ground-hugging, sprawling annuals can be used as mulch for trees and shrubs. In a garden here we planted creeping petunias and mignotte as filler in a new perennial bed. That particular garden needed considerably less water than other new beds next to it.

Grass is not a good mulch. Grass has very high water requirements so it actually robs water from trees and shrubs. The ideal time to water is dawn or dusk, when evaporation is reduced. Overhead watering is the least efficient. For potted plants, collect and re-use the water used to rinse fruits and vegetables.