Living in the desert, we all know how important water is for life. “Aqua es Vida” is the often heard refrain, and it applies to both humans and our whole ecosystem. As we plant trees, shrubs, vegetables, and flowers, there are many techniques for watering that differ according to the time of year, age of the plant, and its species. There is no one way which suits all nor do all the landscape folks agree on the best ways to water. This article provides some things to consider as you perfect your watering technique for outdoor plants.

First and foremost, when you first put a tree or shrub in the ground, be sure to water at the periphery of the pot line so the roots of your new plant are kept moist for at least the next two or three months.

Drip irrigation means black or brown ¼ inch lines with emitting holes six, nine, or twelve inches apart. In an hour’s time, each hole will emit the amount the manufacturer states, often listed as GPH (gallons per hour). If the irrigation line is placed in sandy soil, the water might penetrate many inches, but if the plant is in clay, much less water will penetrate per hour.

You can get an idea of how far the water has penetrated by pushing a piece of rebar or a three-foot screwdriver into the ground as far as it will go near the emitter. It will push through moist earth but stop short when it hits the dry ground. This works as a test for water penetration for any kind of emitter or after hose watering.

Sprinklers are another way to water. Sprinklers are most often used on lawns, but of course lawns are not recommended in our region because they use a lot of water. An additional problem is that, as the days heat up, water left on leaves is apt to burn the plant. So, even with evening or early morning watering, sprinklers are becoming less of an option.

Irrigation systems such as Netafim are especially for watering trees. Tubing (either black round or brown flat) is wrapped in concentric circles around trees from the drip line out with the holes emitting .9 gallons/hour. The caliber of this tubing is larger so it has to be attached differently to the main irrigation line than 1/4 inch tubing. The first circular placements have to be moved out as the tree grows. Wood mulch needs to be spread over these lines (or any irrigation line) to cut down the evaporation of water. Mulch can be up to four to six inches deep. Again, you can always check the effectiveness of the irrigation line with your rebar/screwdriver tool. You do not need to be able to see drip lines or emiter holes..

It is recommended that plants with the same need for water be planted on the same timer line, but since most yards have been planted over time, this is difficult. Hand watering often has to fill in the gaps. If you need to water by hose, a steady dribble of water for three to four hours is usually enough. If it is a large tree, you will have to move the hose to a few different places.

Another interesting way to retain water in the soil is to construct berms and then plant along them. Berms work well on slopes. Soil is mounded up along contour lines and the trench above the mound catches and holds the water. Plants are planted on the berms and water trickles through to their roots.

Soil sponges are an easy, low cost mothod to increase deposits of organic matter that will retain water. They are less frequently employed but a great way to irrigate trees, according to Kelly White at Tree New Mexico. “The larger the sponge, the more trees and shrubs can take advantage of it.” A sponge can be whatever size you want to make it. Find a depression, which could also be a downhill slope, with water from roof runoff that flows towards it. Dig a hole in the depression and pack it with organic matter such as your junk mail, newspaper, old cotton or wool clothes, branches, logs, paper bags, cardboard, etc. Cover it with soil or mulch. It will sink over time as it rots, so you will need to pile more organic matter on top. Some people put a piece of PVC into the sponge and pour water through it periodically, especially if the depression hasn’t been getting much rainwater. It is best to make a sponge before planting a new tree, but they can be made afterwards – just be careful to dig them well beyond the drip line of any trees.

Sponges are not compost. Compost is balanced, with nitrogen, carbon, and other minerals in the right proportion; sponges are just deposits of any organic matter which will retain water while it rots.

And do you water in the morning or at night? Watering in the morning lets you walk around more easily and see how your plants are doing. Watering at night lets the water sink in with less evaporation as the air is cooler.

Every yard is unique so experiment and note what works and doesn’t work for you. Please share any watering techniques that you have found which work for you in our comments section.

Suzanne Simard grew up in a family well acquainted with trees. For generations, they were loggers in British Columbia, Canada. Her very personal book starts with glimpses of her family’s story and moves into her own as she begins work with a logging company. Her job was to understand why plantations (areas of newly planted seedlings after clear cutting) weren’t growing well. Was it because the lumber company had planted seedlings of a different species which would be more profitable than the original native trees they had cut? Or because the seedlings were planted in grids instead of clumps? Or was it the planting’s timing? Or were the seedlings not getting enough water?

She dug up some of the newly planted seedlings and found their root tips brown and dry. When she dug up same-sized native seedlings which had sprouted through humus at the roots of nearby older trees, she found the root tips healthy and encased in webs of yellow fungus – mycorrhiza, living in a symbiotic relationship with a tree’s roots.

Did the web of threads from the fungus transfer water and other nutrients to this native seedling in some kind of integrated underground system? This became her first question. Her research early on began to challenge the lumber company and Canadian government policies, especially the practice of using massive amounts of glyphosate herbicides to keep other trees from growing near recently planted seedlings of the commercially valuable firs.

Whether trees compete or collaborate became another question. Her data showed that plantings of Douglas fir grew only half as fast without birch trees nearby transferring nitrogen and sugars along mycorrhizal networks. Older trees cooperated with younger trees of the same species and also other species! Yet, foresters were not convinced by her data.

Through many years to follow, including earning her masters and PhD degrees, planting thousands of seedlings, and doing multiple experiments with her students and in collaboration with other researchers, Simard’s work has led to the concept of “mother trees” as hubs in the life and renewal of forest health. Her research is increasingly accepted and better funded. The use of glyphosates is decreasing. She is involved in a huge undertaking with nine experimental forests with various climate and soil conditions across British Columbia. Her question now is: “Which combination of harvesting and planting will be most resilient to the stresses the planet is facing?”

While my mind zoned out reading about the numerous experiments, I admire the creativity, time, and patience her research took. Her writing is crisp, with visuals you can see, such as: “Branches burst with new growth over a fleece of jade needles.” I went on a journey with Simard and ended up totally convinced that Finding the Mother Tree and preserving her and her fungal networks are key.

Wetlands play important roles in water management and ecology; they provide unique habitats, slow water movement along rivers in times of flooding, decrease erosion by stabilizing stream beds, improve the quality of water which moves through them, and recharge groundwater. Although much of New Mexico is arid, our state does have wetlands (look for them on the National Wetlands Inventory map!). Our wetlands are increasingly endangered.

A wetland is broadly defined as an area with plants and water. The four general classifications of wetlands are: 1) Marshes – areas which have continual, mostly surface, water and soft stemmed vegetation; 2) Swamps – areas often found alongside sluggish rivers and which have more shrubs and woody plants; 3) Bogs – spongy areas which may have moss and get their water from rain which saturates the soil; and 4) Fens – water-logged areas which can get their water from either surface or groundwater and can form peat over years.

In New Mexico, Amigos Bravos has done a lot of work in wetland protection and restoration in the Taos area. Their Wetlands Jewel Project has an informative website with many photos of 22 different sites (for example, Midnight Meadows and La Jara Canyon) which they have identified for protection or restoration in the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests. This work requires much cooperation from ranchers, BLM, Forest Service, county and municipal zoning, and others, as the wetlands can cover a vast area and be subject to many conflicting interests and jurisdictions.

Rio Grande Return is another organization working in wetland restoration. Their riverscape restoration along the San Antonio Creek is a good example of using Beaver Mimicry to increase wetlands. They have built 40 dams on a stretch of the creek. In the past four years, the water table has risen an impressive three feet.

In Bernalillo County, there is a 60–80 acre wetland called the San Antonio Oxbox on the west side of the Rio Grande. It can be reached by taking Namaste NW off of Coors NW. From the parking lot there are two trails: one provides views along the rim and the other descends and crosses some arroyos. Neither are marked as this property is still being developed by the City of Albuquerque’s Open Space division. Wildlife you might see, especially in early morning, include beaver, muskrat, deer, coyote, porcupine, bobcat, and fox. On the east side of the river, connected wetland ponds have beaver living in them in the Tingley Beach area. Both Valle del Oro and The Nature Center have plans to re-establish wetlands, and members of the Isleta Pueblo have been working for the past two years to clean out invasive species in their 1,000 acre bosque to reconnect the river to its flood plain.

A complex urban project managed by The Nature Conservancy, with collaboration from eight other advocacy groups and governmental agencies, is the Harvey Jones Channel. This is an example of what is called green stormwater infrastructure, a process for managing stormwater. It begins in the 60-square mile Montoya Watershed above Corrales and moves the stormwater through Corrales to the Rio Grande through the Harvey Jones Channel. The Harvey Jones Channel is joined towards the end by treated wastewater from Rio Rancho, allowing for year-round water. It acts as a bioswale, which is a linear U-shaped ditch with high sides that allows water to collect, penetrate into groundwater and, eventually in this case to the Rio Grande. The final part of the bioswale channel is a 10-acre parcel which curves in order to slow the speed of the water. Vegetation planted along its sides includes thousands of willow stems and cottonwood poles. This new wetland functions to additionally clean water and provide habitat for birds and other animals along the river.

In Socorro County, the Ladd S. Gordon Waterfowl Complex in Bernardo and the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge are examples of marsh wetlands, both increasing the water table height and providing habitat for migrating birds and other wildlife year-round.

New Mexico is not full of wetlands, but the ones we have are important and need our protection. Some need restoration, and the Harvey Jones Channel and its wetlands project demonstrate how green stormwater infrastructure can solve problems while creating a wetland with all its environmentally positive outcomes.

Beaver mimicry is a surprising new approach to restoring watersheds. Beavers have long been considered a nuisance species and problematic, but today there is an increased awareness of the positive effects their dams have on the environment. Beaver dams slow stream flow, decrease flooding, help develop wetlands, increase riparian vegetation, decrease erosion, and augment habitat for other species such as birds. Oftentimes, watching other species teaches us how to work with nature.

Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) are human-made dams that are carefully situated in a degraded stream. Wooden stakes are placed vertically and then willow or other brush is woven between them, allowing water to flow through the dam. A BDA slows the speed of water during times of high runoff and also allows water to be stored behind it, increasing groundwater recharge. Professional engineers adopt this strategy when they build weir dams – small dams built across a river to control upstream water levels. Riverscape Restoration photos from the Rio Grande Return website shows a stream with these dams in northern New Mexico. Currently, there are no beaver mimicry projects underway in the mid Rio Grande Watershed.

BDA is the fastest growing stream restoration technique in the American West and is used by wetland managers, ranchers, the Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management among others. There are now manuals for design of BDAs developed by researchers and government agencies, training workshops, and videos on how to construct one. (beaversww.org/articles-2/). And go to Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife for many fascinating articles on beavers.

by Edna Loehman

On a recent morning I saw and heard:

The biggest black fuzzy bumblebee I had ever seen – about the size of a hummingbird!
Many kinds of bees feasting on hollyhock pollen.
A parent finch feeding a nearly grown baby on the telephone line.
Many white butterflies and a swallow tail butterfly drifting through.
A rabbit munching my kale.
A thrasher dive-bombing my patio on the way to its cactus nest.
A cactus wren eating agave flowers.
Many birds (mostly sparrows and doves) singing. 
And most exciting of all, a sharp-shinned hawk watching newly hatched sparrows.

How did all this garden richness come about? Partly it came from the previous owners of the house I bought three years ago and partly from my own gardening efforts since.

I have a typical older adobe style house on an ordinary lot in this area. It has many cacti and agave in the front yard, and in the back, a lot of purple flowering plants and green-growing fruit trees.  There is no grass, just wood chips to cover the non-planted garden soil.  To this space I have added several garden areas with herbs, veggies, and more native plants, most colored purple and red favored by hummingbirds.  Many hollyhocks have emerged as volunteers and the variety in colors is amazing. And of course volunteer sunflowers are also re-seeding themselves annually.

I love that flowers and herbs are mixed with the veggies in my garden and now I am more purposely trying to achieve a backyard wildlife garden, that is, a garden specifically designed to attract birds and bees. One of my garden goals is to see more hummingbirds which only come occasionally now.

At the Plants of the Southwest store, which specializes in native plants, I found a flyer for the ABQ Backyard Refuge Program: see https://friendsofvalledeoro.org/abq-backyard-refuge/ for more detailed information. The flyer lists ways to attract wildlife to your garden.  While I had planted nice native plants, I had not done all these, but now I am!  Here are some in brief:

1.  Plant native plants: Insects and birds have evolved with native plants, and native plants are adapted to our habitat and weather.
2. Water is a wildlife magnet: all animals and insects need water.  Water can be changed regularly to avoid breeding mosquitos.
3. Leave garden litter to provide habitat for many species:  Butterflies need leaves to lay their eggs.  Lizards need litter to hide from hawks.  Insects need cover from hot soil.  Birds perch on many levels of branches, so dead branches can be helpful. Seed heads provide food for birds.
4. Avoid Pesticides: It is well known that pesticides are a cause for bee decline, threatening pollination of important fruits and crops.  But also insects are a source of food for birds, also in decline in urban areas.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220929132622.htm#:~:text=The%20fact%20that%20an%20urban,are%20fewer%20insects%2C%20for%20example.

Pests like aphids provide food for baby hummingbirds.  Weeds such as dandelions are early sources of pollen for pollinating insects.

The advice about leaving litter, weeds, and pests disturbed me at first. But the reward is in experiencing the richness in life’s creatures. Shouldn’t we be able to tolerate a bit of loss in our urban gardens? Do we have to be neat freaks in our whole garden? Now the remote part of my backyard is messy with pecan leaf mulch, dead branches, last year’s sunflower heads and stalks, etc.  But I have lots of lizards, and lizards are good hawk food! I am even learning to tolerate a recent rabbit visitor eating part of my chard (and also hollyhock leaves), because I have so much!

I do need to add to my habitat some better water sources for birds, insects, and lizards (different height levels for each).  A good source for designing water in the garden is Albuquerque Water Gardens: https://albuquerquewatergardens.com/

A backyard wildlife garden is obviously a work in process – we learn as we go.  As we are amazed with the things we notice, we seek to learn more about what we see.  What kind of lizards live here?  What are the names of birds?  How amazing it is that parent birds care for their offspring even after they leave the nest.  What eats what (roaches?)  We see that the thrashers come to accept us as we quietly watch them in their life cycle.  And as we learn, we begin to feel like we are a part of our backyard world, and more importantly part of the larger natural world.

“Practical research-based knowledge and programs to improve the quality of life.”

In the 1860, the United States government established land grant colleges across the country. These were usually called State Colleges and each was funded for a School of Agriculture. New Mexico State is our land grant school. CES is part of the College of Ag, and every county in NM has a Cooperative Extension Services office. (In Gallup there is an additional Tribal cultural based office with sheep shearing, 4H, backyard community gardening.) In the mid Rio Grande the offices are in Socorro, Los Lunas, Albuquerque and Bernalillo.

Not every CES carries on the same activities. In Socorro the main programs are Nutrition Education at senior centers, 4-H (self-led projects), and a pesticide applicators course in December for renewal of licensure. In Valencia County there are eight in-person 4-H clubs, a Master Gardner Course, and the agent makes home and farm visits to help with problems which arise. They are planning on expanding services as they fill staff vacancies.

The Albuquerque Cooperative Extension Office is fully staffed and has a robust array of classes and an excellent web site which is inclusive of both CES courses and other agency’s classes on gardening. Some examples of CES courses offered throughout the year are preparation for Fire Defense Zones, the Five Step Walking Method, Diabetes Prevention Life-Style, Food Preparation and storage (canning), Building Resilience with today’s stresses, and Backyard Farming. There are also a webinars on Sleep problems and on Stress Management. A week-long Garden Guardians camp for kids runs July 17-21, and the staff supports    4-H clubs and judging at the state fair. The Master Gardeners classes have a waiting list but Master Gardeners are available Monday-Friday 9:00-3:30 to answer gardening questions. (505-243-1386). The office staff will also identify plants which you bring in. Their website also carries current pertinent information. For example, the recent invasion of migrating Miller moths is fully explained.

Bernalillo CES also has the 15 week Master Gardener course and as a follow-up, the graduate gardeners offer courses to the public throughout the year. They also publish a newsletter. Currently CES staff is working on the Sandoval County 4-H Fair,, which runs August 3-6 and has both large and small animal (rabbit, poultry) showing and judging, plus a horse show. All are welcome to the fairgrounds.

There are thirteen science centers across New Mexico as part of New Mexico State University Department of Agriculture. The one in the mid Rio Grande Valley is located in Los Lunas on 204 acres of land. There are 55,000+ acres of irrigated land and urban gardeners in this valley leading the center to chose research projects which serve this population.

Since established in 1957, the Los Lunas Center has researched many crops as corn, chili, turf grasses, and fruit trees. At this time there are three main projects:

(1) Integrated pest management – This research is aimed to manage pests while maintaining beneficial insect populations.
(2) Viticulture –  This relates to the growing of grapes. This research aims to maximize grape production across the state by variety selection and rootstock testing. Also included are vineyard management techniques.
(3) Forage research is being conducted to find the most cost-effective ways to grow alfalfa.

Other Science Centers are located in communities across the state and are involved in a variety of research projects. Some examples in Northern New Mexico are: Alcalde – fruit production, bees, acequia culture, Clayton – feedlot research, Mora – improving the quality of forestry seedlings to meet a harsher environment. In the Southern part of New Mexico, some of the centers are located in Artesia – bioenergy feedstock, Clovis – alternative crops for dryland and irrigated farming systems, Las Cruces – application of digital agriculture tools.

Each of the Centers has an annual Field Day. The tour of the research farm in Los Lunas is on Tuesday, August 8th at 7:30 a.m. and the tours of the others are listed on the NNMSU Agriculture College website’s home page.

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