Dealing with Drought in Landscapes
During the heat and dry spells of summer, it can be challenging to keep your landscape looking beautiful. As the season progresses, plants often show signs of stress due to drought. These can include discoloration, diminished buds and flowers, bare spots on turf, and higher susceptibility to insects and disease. Prolonged drought stress can lead to plant death. Additionally, if irrigation systems struggle to keep up, or if a city imposes watering restrictions, problems – and costs to landscape managers – can quickly add up.
Hydretain is the solution to drought and drought-related issues. It is designed to attract water molecules in the soil that would be lost due to evaporation, and converts them back to plant usable liquid water. Proper use of Hydretain means plants and roots can utilize more soil moisture, which saves users water. Here are some ways that Hydretain can help landscape managers during drought.
Protection from Drought
A plant afflicted by persistent drought and high heat has no time to recover from its stressed state. It won’t be able to transport nutrients or water and has no opportunity to get back to its normal growth cycle. This means landscapes won’t experience necessary growth and reach peak vigor and health.
Turf and trees treated with Hydretain need up to 50% less water, so even during droughts you can maintain proper moisture to keep plants healthy. Hydretain ensures there is sufficient moisture in the soil regardless of weather or atmospheric humidity, which means each watering goes further and maintains a healthy environment.
Fixes Dry Spots
Hydretain can be used for recovery and to fix problem areas on turf, like dry spots. Use it across an entire property to help reduce dry spots overall, or use it on targeted parts of turf to get quick and focused effects. Watering Hydretain into dry spots gets the formulation directly into the root zone, keeping additional water near dry, stressed roots.
Reduce Labor and Callbacks
Preventative use of Hydretain will ensure protection from problem areas in turf such as dry spots, irrigation failure, and stress due to high foot traffic. This will reduce the need for additional team visits, reduce customer callbacks and landscape issues, and ultimately save time and labor during the busy summer season. It will provide peace of mind to you and to customers who can be assured that landscapes treated with Hydretain will be more resilient during summer. It also has a great effect on potted flowers and plants, which have limited soil moisture and ordinarily need frequent hand watering. Hydretain ensures that pots need less water, which means fewer site visits.
Provides Additional Services
When landscapes dry out during the summer, customers may cancel services, thinking that there’s no reason to treat dry and dormant properties. Treating with Hydretain means they stay green and vigorous during summer, preventing customer cancellations and leading to more seasonal business. Liquid Hydretain can even be added to fertigation systems as an additional service. You can think of Hydretain as an additional revenue source!
Reduces Watering Costs
When your customers use less water on properties treated with Hydretain, they will notice lower watering costs for the season. This effect will be even more noticeable on large properties. Hydretain means you can maintain healthy properties even during summer watering restrictions. Hydretain can also be used while irrigation systems are being repaired or retrofitted to protect turf and landscapes from drying while the system is offline.
Creates Healthier Landscapes
By keeping root systems hydrated, with more useable moisture between watering or rainfalls, Hydretain reduces drought stress, delays wilt and helps prevent other plant-health related issues. Studies show that Hydretain helps with several additional plant health issues, including seedling survival rates, transplant establishment, and reducing root loss. Hydretain can be used in spring and fall too, by helping with nutrient uptake from fertilizers, maintaining optimal soil conditions for control products, and helping with seeding and germination rates. It will even help with new plant establishments for sod and ornamentals.
Drought is a real issue for landscapers, but it does not need to spell disaster! Hydretain helps keep turf and plants going all season long with less water- saving time, money and precious water resources. Find out more about how Hydretain can help through our website.