06-22-2017, 12:03 PM
My wife insisted we put cherry trees in our planting strip two years ago and they have been a pain in my ass since then. We get almost no rain for three months during the summer and we're on a ridge so these things get sun ~14 hours/day. I've tried tree bags and sprinklers, but they're a pain in the ass in their own special way - mostly unwinding and winding a hose. I also looked into a sprinkler system for the whole yard, but we're talking $6000 to do it "right." By comparison, we had one installed in our Ashburn house about 10 years ago and that cost $1200.
Our trees are already looking a bit dry, so I picked up some of these root watering things. There's a vented spike you can permanently install at the tree base and you mount a five gallon bucket on top; the water slowly draining over 5-8 hours (similar to tree bags). I already like these more because I can fill one bucket at the spigot and easily pour it into the other two buckets. I carried the third bucket with the plug provided in the hole in the bucket and just crammed it on the spike, pushing the plug out. So far the seals are watertight and I left them to drain overnight, with the lids on to prevent debris. Once drained, I can just remove the buckets and store them. The directions say one bucket a week for established trees is good. I'll report back in a month or so about how they work out.
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![[Image: 19390736_10154467282961744_5815475497829...e=59D752DF]](https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/19390736_10154467282961744_5815475497829907895_o.jpg?oh=00bf29c284018f7e0435f39292bd43d4&oe=59D752DF)
Our trees are already looking a bit dry, so I picked up some of these root watering things. There's a vented spike you can permanently install at the tree base and you mount a five gallon bucket on top; the water slowly draining over 5-8 hours (similar to tree bags). I already like these more because I can fill one bucket at the spigot and easily pour it into the other two buckets. I carried the third bucket with the plug provided in the hole in the bucket and just crammed it on the spike, pushing the plug out. So far the seals are watertight and I left them to drain overnight, with the lids on to prevent debris. Once drained, I can just remove the buckets and store them. The directions say one bucket a week for established trees is good. I'll report back in a month or so about how they work out.
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'76 911S | '14 328xi | '17 GTI | In memoriam: '08 848, '85 944
"Here, at last, is the cure for texting while driving. The millions of deaths which occur every year due to the iPhone’s ability to stream the Kim K/Ray-J video in 4G could all be avoided, every last one of them, if the government issued everyone a Seventies 911 and made sure they always left the house five minutes later than they’d wanted to. It would help if it could be made to rain as well. Full attention on the road. Guaranteed." -Jack Baruth
"Here, at last, is the cure for texting while driving. The millions of deaths which occur every year due to the iPhone’s ability to stream the Kim K/Ray-J video in 4G could all be avoided, every last one of them, if the government issued everyone a Seventies 911 and made sure they always left the house five minutes later than they’d wanted to. It would help if it could be made to rain as well. Full attention on the road. Guaranteed." -Jack Baruth