If you plant now, be prepared to water

Yes, the current weather makes it feel like May. But anything you plant in early July (it really is early July) you will have to water assiduously, because sooner or later it really will become a sweaty, parching Chicago summer.

All plants--even those labeled "drought-tolerant"--need watering until they grow enough roots to seek out water for themselves. A "low-maintenance" landscape will take at least a season or two to arrive at that condition.

My mother, who has spent five or six years trying to get a native prairie plant landscape established in her front yard, is only now trying to unload her surplus garden hoses. It has taken years of watering to get those plants established. And despite loads of leaves for mulch every year, she's still weeding like the Spartans holding the pass at Thermopylae.

I'm all for native plants, but I worry that their "low-maintenance" aspect gets oversold. A lot of people seem to think that "low-maintenance" means "no-maintenance," starting immediately. They spend a mess of money planting a garden or paying somebody to plant it and then think they can ignore it like they ignore the new fence. Doesn't work that way. Plants have needs, especially when young.

We've been able to get away with a lot of neglect this spring and early summer because of all the rain and cool weather. That can lull us out of the habit of checking for dry soil and watering when needed. And when a dry spell hits--one of those Chicago dry spells, when the humans can't breathe for all the humidity in the air but the soil is bone-dry--complacency could cost us some plants.

Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe.

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