All this rain is killing my plants

[GodStar]

The shrubs are all dying in an area of my garden that has been waterlogged for a few weeks now. Is there anything I can do short of trying to dig them up and move them to dryer ground? My prize Japonica is now a bedraggled mess

[medusa]

You could do the trick that is used with waterlogged lawns, which is to use a long tine fork to make lots of sets of deep vertical holes around the lawn and then fill the holes with sand to ease drainage. It's done with an 'insert, wiggle and withdraw' movement, rather than a digging movement.

 

The sand won't be as easy to get into the holes in a bed as it is in a lawn though, because you can't use a broom to sweep it in like you can on a lawn.

 

Basically anything that aerates the soil will improve the waterlogging, but it will be heavy going to do the digging that will aerate the soil and the basic improvement will only come when we stop getting such a huge level of rainfall. Long term, if the oddities in the weather that we've been seeing continue, then pretty much the only option you will have will be to move the plants.

[GodStar]

Insert, wiggle, withdraw..Sounds like sound advice ta and Im well practiced at that

[six45ive]

Most of my plants are in pots so this weather has been good for me as I haven't had to go round with a watering can every day.

Medusa's advice is spot on. You can't have too much drainage on a lawn. Drought doesn't kill grass. It may go brown in a long dry spell but it always comes back at the first sniff of rain. look at the Serengeti for example. Waterlogging however is a different matter and grass will die off in waterlogged conditions if you're continually walking on it.

[PeteMorris]

Insert, wiggle, withdraw..Sounds like sound advice ta and Im well practiced at that

 

Hahahaha....Another inadvertant clanger! :hihi: