Watering may be required anytime from February on for established specimens making new growth in spring - as most do. The exception is established specimens of drought-adapted species, like junipers and pines.

Newly planted stock will need to be watered often enough to keep it moist inside the original soil ball. Stock planted with intact rootballs may have quite a problem with moisture being wicked away by the soil around the original potting- or field soil rootballs, once conditions are dry enough.

is it truly strange.. or are you .. perhaps for the first time.. really keyed into the weather ....

frankly .. weather cycles.. at a minimum ..... are on a decade level .... if not century ...

can you tell us.. with any certainty .. how this spring differs from 10 years ago .. or 100 years ago ...

the year i moved here.. jan 2000 .. in april.. i planted 40 bare root oak, ash.. etc.. it rained every 4th day for the entire summer... making 100% success on trees for that year .. since then .. never again ...

was 2000 the rule.. or the exception ..

as noted many times.. insert finger.. and water when hot or nearly dry ... and continue until late fall .. but please.. dont make summary conclusions based on short duration ...

to much of this climate change stuff is based on short term data which is useless in the long run .. it is a given fact.. that since the last ice age.. the earth has been warming ... go figure on all that .... and it will continue to warm ... until it all triggers the next ice age ...

please.. will.. continue on God's work ... but dont jump to conclusions based on a small database ...

continued luck

ken

Couldn't agree with Ken more.

Climatic data is so limited, that its like looking at a table with 100 trillion rows in it, browsing the top 100 rows, then making a conclusion about the entire set base on the first 100 ... usually very wrong at best. The entire climate change thing is 99% scam.

Similarly, my winter was bizarre ... virtually no snow in Jan, Feb and Mar ... then a horrendous April.

Two years ago, we had a foot of snow for eight weekends in a row ... all in Decemeber, one of the least snowy months in Colorado historically.

The only thing normal is something really different from year to year.

Now a fairly nice May, but more rain than last year, which is a good thing.

This year, from Jan thru early April ... we had only .25" of precipitation total.

Were up to around 5" for the year.

"...8 weekends in a row" - "all in December"

That was ONE LONG December!

Will...I've found that conifers planted in the fall have spread out their roots enough by now that I can relax a bit. New spring plantings will need to be watched closely as you are essentially still growing a potted plant, but in the ground, and the media can dry out quickly. Once they get roots established into your native soil irrigation gets easier.

Barbara

I started watering in February. Watering a lot now. Using a water meter and very carefully observing each tree for signs of over-under watering. Also use a binocular to look at tree tops.

Use sprinklers at night. Water tree wells by hand with hose in daytime, early morning. Can begin hand-watering east side in shade at about 5:30/p but soon that will be too early. Have to be careful in this yard not to get leaves wet when hot and sunny out or leaves will burn and scorch.

Each year the trees get more established and need less water. Right now big spring push, they want a lot of moisture. They much prefer rain but there's no sign of that anytime soon. They like their leaves misted and watered during the night, especially the evergreens. Also keeps the bugs off them.

>Have to be careful in this yard not to get leaves wet when hot and sunny out or leaves will burn and scorch Wet foliage is not susceptible to sunburn
 Analyze site conditions to ensure optimal root and shoot health and prevent drought problems
 Any time plants exhibit drought stress symptoms is the time to water them
 Optimal watering time is in the early morning; watering during the day increases evaporative losses,
and evening watering regimes can encourage establishment of some fungal pathogens
 Do not overuse fertilizers and pesticides, especially those containing sodium or chloride salts
 If using recycled or gray water, consider running the water through a filtering system before applying it
to plants

Here is a link that might be useful: The Myth of Hot-Weather Watering

Yep, ppl have said that before, but the leaves here get brown and burnt and shrivel if they get wet and then hit by hot sun. Watched it too many times, photographed it, lost some trees to it, very careful not to let it happen.

From the page linked to above:

There are many causes of leaf scorch, but irrigation with fresh water is certainly not one of them.
Hundreds of scientific publications on crop plants, turf, woody shrubs and trees have examined foliar
scorch, and not one of them has implicated midday irrigation as a causal agent*. What does cause damage,
however, is suboptimal plant-water relations, which can result in tip and marginal leaf scorch, shoot
dieback, stunted growth, and leaf abscission. After drought, the most common source of these problems
is salt, in particular salts containing sodium (Na) and/or chlorine (Cl)

*Emphasis mine

First off, I am a weather fanatic, I've been closely following weather since I was younger and with more zeal then ever now that I have become a gardener. I find it fascinating and even do some amatuer storm chasing.

Second, I do believe there is a climate change underway and I strongly feel humankind is to blame for most of that - but this is for another post or probably another forum alltogether.

Next, I do water in the morning, in fact right now I am watering hard as another day in the low 80s is expected here - quite unusual again for this time of the year here.

I rarely water during the heat of the day for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest is that I do a lot of hand-watering with watering cans and too much heat can make it a pretty exhaustive venture.

I guess the real subject of this post should have been more like: "For those with brand-new(less then a year established) pots of conifers, do you water them during the spring/summer/fall months once a week or four times a week, or what? I have a fairly sandy, fast-draining soil, so I am tempted to water twice a week or more during hot dry spells but I was curious what schedules other conifer enthusiasts stuck to.

Love to hear from you,

Will

Timing depends on conditions in each garden, including weather that is occurring, state of growth of each specimen, and condition of material around roots of each. The same block of pots or portion of a planting can have plants that dry out faster than others.

It would be nearly impossible for me to water plants, individually, by schedule. I am sticking to a schedule so far of two heavy waters a week when we get no rain, one heavy watering when we get one good day of rain and no added water when we get two days of strong rain in a week.

I realize that pines will probably be better off then abies or dawn redwoods, but I just don't have the time to water things so specifically.

First year - weekly watering in summer. Be-weekly in fall. Monthly in winter if dry.
2nd year - every other week in summer. Monthly in fall, winter, spring if dry.
After that - monthly if dry/drought.
Plant trees that are either native to this area or rated at surviving this area.
Conifers planted include : Eastern Red Cedar, Arizona Cypress, Hinoki Cypress, Notabilis Cypress, Bald Cypress, Pinyon Pine, and one Green Giant (it looks like it needs a cooler wetter place).
Only transplant trees when their roots are reaching the edges of 5 gal. container. Seedlings are raised in pots and watered every other day in summer.