Are you making sure not to overwater your drought-stressed plant?
Do you avoid fertilizing during the drought?
Did you replenish mulch around your plant?
Do you take extra care that your plant does not suffer from some pest or disease?
It's tempting to want to give drought-stressed plants as much water as they can handle, but it is possible to overdo it. You want to ease your plants back into health. Keep the soil moist, but not wet. Roots need oxygen as much as they need water and keeping the soil saturated will suffocate the roots and lead to more stress. Most plants need 1 inch of water per week or about 1 gallon per square foot.
Don't fertilize during the drought. Without adequate water, fertilizer would either be wasted or would just cause more stress. Once the drought ends, slow-release fertilizer is the best option. It will be available as the plant recovers and will help ease it back into vigor. Choose one with a high phosphorous percentage, rather than one high in nitrogen. The phosphorous will aid in repairing the root system, where the nitrogen would encourage rapid leaf growth that could compound problems.
Once your plants have been well watered and possibly fed, make sure they have a 3 to 4-inch layer of mulch around the drip line. Organic mulches decompose during the growing season and by mid-summer, they may have almost disappeared. Keep those stressed roots cool and moist by replacing the mulch as soon as you can.
During a long drought, it can sometimes help to prune otherwise healthy plants back by about 1/3, to lessen the plant's need for water. Avoid cutting back trees and shrubs because they need their canopies to prevent scorching and burning and pruning them back would just cause more stress. Remove any dead or dying branches. They won't recover and they make good hiding places for pests and entry points for disease.
Drought-stressed plants are targets for pests and diseases, which will further weaken your plants. While we should be on the lookout for problems throughout the season, keep an especially keen eye during drought. Catch problems early. In some cases, you may need to do some pruning out and maybe even remove the plant entirely.
https://www.thespruce.com/reviving-drought-stressed-plants-1402501
Sreten null
Hi! I’m Sreten Filipović. I graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Belgrade, with a master's degree in Environmental Protection in Agricultural Systems. I’ve worked as a researcher at Finland's Natural Resources Institute (LUKE) on a project aimed at adapting south-western Finland to drought episodes. I founded a consulting agency in the field of environment and agriculture to help farmers who want to implement the principles of sustainability on their farms. I’m also a founding member of the nonprofit organization Ecogenesis from Belgrade whose main goal is non-formal education on the environment and ecology. In my spare time, I like to write blog posts about sustainability, the environment, animal farming, horticulture, and plant protection. I’ve also published several science-fiction short stories.
You can find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreten-filipovi%C4%87-515aa5158/
