THE LEAFLET

October 5, 2020 /
Jona Elwell

Feelin’ Hot, Hot, Hot: 2020 Weekly Watering Alert Wrap Up

One of the best things you can do to ensure the survival of young trees, especially urban trees, is to be sure they receive adequate water each week- an inch and a half of rainfall or the equivalent 25 gallons of water. It’s for this reason that we post Weekly Watering Alerts weekly from May through October and encourage folks to take our #25toStayAlive pledge to water their trees. And since we’ve survived another summer here in the District, it’s time to recap our Weekly Watering Alerts!

It was a record-breaking summer in a lot of ways – DC broke its record for the hottest day and night temperatures. It remained above 90 degrees for a record 36 straight days in July! Therefore, we took matters into our own hands and came up with our own record to beat—water 1,000 trees. We smashed our record watering 1,478 trees in just one day!

Rain may not be as consistent as we’d like (is it ever?) and while trees still need to be watered, trees are not quite in dire straits. Needless to say, we’ve spent some quality time with the hose this summer (and spring, and fall). Here’s a breakdown of Weekly Watering Alerts:

As the summer and dry conditions thankfully come to an end, so do our Weekly Watering Alerts. However, just because our Watering Alerts have ended doesn’t mean you should stop watering – our arborist suggests that trees still in their first two to three years should still be watered once a week through November if warm weather persists. Feel free to reach out to us at friends@caseytrees.org or 202-833-4010 if you have any questions.

 

So what will next year bring? Even more rain? Endless sun? Pots of gold at the end of rainbows? A widely available COVID vaccine? Only time will tell. Regardless, any weather is great weather to re-tree DC!