Water usage as temps/sun decrease also decrease. An off-the-cuff guess, but I'd guess you can cut watering by 1/2 to 2/3rds. In my area, water table almost always goes up even tho precip declines on average as fall proceeds.

You can ease off on watering the ferns. They are very tough plants.

Watering depends on your plants. If they are dormant, they probably don't need it. If they are still growing, they might depending on the plant and their soil situation.

I'm mainly concerned about my new fall plantings that may dry up in their peat based rootballs, even if they are dormant. I also have evergreens too like azaleas and some conifers that are in very dry soil because of other mature trees nearby. So then I may just limit watering to evergreens and fall plantings from this year and forget the rest. There's only so much I can do with watering everything every week.

I am watering everything which has been recently planted. We are definitely having a dry spell but otoh, evaporation has slowed down (because temperature) so I have adjusted the amounts accordingly. This is actually my main planting time - everything from this years seedlings to mature perennials, so I am maintaining a moisture level which is required for successful establishment. I hardly ever plant in spring because both my soil (lean and free draining) and climate (semi-arid) are not conducive to spring planting whereas winter rains do, at least, mitigate some of the most challenging seasonal drought pressures. However, while I might leave established plants to subsist without additional water, this is not the case for anything which has recently been put in the ground.

Pots have to be watered year round...but obviously, at much reduced levels.

I would like to add that the bigger question (for me) is not whether to water or not, but HOW to water. A daily dribble is worse than not watering at all whereas I have a (very) rough rule of thumb for watering when no rain has fallen. As a starting point, I like to use 10 litres of water for every square metre, every week. But obviously, not all plants are equal and seasonal, climate conditions always lead to adjustments being made. When trying to get a handle on existing soil levels. I would like to have nice clear guidelines but since all horticulture is so contingent on a zillion variables, there is no real substitute for having a good poke about. What seems to be happening on the surface often has no relationship to the moisture levels at different depths and parts of my plot. I would say that the most essential part of gardening is basically observation and getting to know your garden and the plants existing in it.

My 2 cents:

This is the time of year when the roots of woody (and maybe other) plants grow up to 60% of total length for the season. It's also the time that very little is happening with the tops, albeit some hardening off but near zero transpiration. So, plants moisture requirements drop substantially.

You do not want the soil to become completely dry but not wet or soggy either.

Checking soil moisture regularly would be vitally important, this time of year, when precipitation is sparse.

Yea, I am starting to learn all of my plant’s water requirements and their tolerances but a drought to this extreme just kinda scares me no matter what the plant is. Of course I check the soil with my fingers and only water the bone dry ones but there are so many spots like that in my garden now. For ex My thuja green giant screens I planted last year seem to be growing nicely somehow in bone dry soil. And it’s not even established yet, which scares me. Maybe they really don’t need all that extra water but 2+ months of no rain is terrifying, I just have that urge to water. I guess I’ll stop with the worrying and cut back on the watering. Tonight is our first frost so hopefully they’ll all shut down soon.

I’ve always heard that drought stressed plants are more susceptible to damage during a freeze.

That's very true jrb451. That's why I mentioned to NOT allow the soil to become completely dry.

Roots cannot develop and tissue cannot harden off properly if insufficient moisture.

I’d water as much as you can. Might as well make sure your plants are good to go into winter

That was my thinking LC until this last season when it stayed abnormally warm in September and October and no rain.

I watered lavishly figuring it was the best way for things to finish off for the season and with cooler temperatures like we normally get, it would've been.

What happened was, with the incessant heat, many of the plants thought spring had arrived already and didn't want to harden off and/or go dormant. Some started growing again.

For a couple weeks I thought I had totally blown it and would have a lot of winter kill by spring.

Luckily, it stayed dry enough to allow things to dry out and temps cooled enough also so the plants finally hardened off and went dormant (I think).

YMMV and your local climate, I'm sure isn't the same as mine but I had a real scare going on this last Fall.

To me, trees, plants and shrubs suffering from drought is such a foreign concept. Every single plant here owes its existence to irrigation. So a drought doesn’t prompt any sort of change to my routine!

I don't know LC where you're getting the idea that I told people to let their plants become drought stricken.

If there's any doubt, please go back and read my first comment where I said: 'Check soil moisture frequently' to see if the plants need water.

It has always been the consensus on this forum that wet or soggy soils for the most part is not doing the plants any favors. There may be exceptions but for the most part, water requirements, late season is greatly reduced and over watering can do more harm than good.

Ha ha all good. I was just commenting on my experience and conditions

Well regardless of how dried up things are along with some few forest fires going on around in my area I decided I'm not going to water anymore this season. I can't keep up, time-wise and the water bills. Maybe just some of my newly planted conifers, if the soil gets dry. I did however check the moisture of one part of my garden that I haven't watered in 3 weeks and is prone to drying out very fast due to mature trees in the vicinity and surprisingly it was still moist. So that's reassuring. But anyway it's supposed to rain this coming Wednesday, not sure how much but hoping for a decent soaking.