CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Nothing can challenge a passion for gardening like buying a few (or a few dozen) new plants at a spring sale, bringing them home, and lovingly planting them, only to see them wilt and die a few weeks later during a June heat wave in Northeast Ohio.

Newly established plants require careful and consistent watering, and one of the best parts of gardening in Northeast Ohio is that we can usually on rain to do that job for us, and drought periods usually last a week or two at most. A reasonable strategy is to water manually with a hose or bucket to get sensitive plants through a dry spell.

But life happens, and watering plants can quickly take a backseat to health, family, or career demands. Or, you may go on vacation and not have a trusty neighbor to help water.

To prevent seeing your investment in new plants wither, a minor investment in time and money can go a long way to making sure that watering is on autopilot during dry spells. Borrowing from my experience gardening during a multiyear drought in Southern California, I’m considering adding supplemental irrigation to keep new plantings and raised beds watered and healthy.

While raised beds are fantastic for growing vegetables and herbs because the soil can be perfectly amended, their major drawback is that they dry out quickly because the soil is more exposed. Reader Joe shared his hack a few weeks ago to bury plastic bottles with holes in them to serve as reservoirs for keeping the roots watered. This method is an inexpensive and simple way to lengthen the amount of time needed between manual watering sessions.

A somewhat more complicated technique is to install a soaker hose on a timer. A relatively inexpensive hose faucet timer is attached at the hose bibb and connected to a garden hose that then connects to a soaker hose snaked among plants in the raised bed or vegetable garden plot.

The benefit of the buried bottle or the soaker hose is that the roots are watered but the leaves stay dry. Mildew and fungi develops quickly on the wet leaves of annual vegetable plants, so if your only option is manual overhead watering with a hose, do it first thing in the morning. This gives the leaves have time to dry before the heat of the day and prevents both sunscald and mildew.

Newly planted native shrubs, trees, and perennials, on the other hand, benefit from deep watering around the entire drip area of the plant. This practice has the dual benefit of encouraging roots to grow deeply and preventing root rot from overwatering in a single location. To achieve this type of watering most efficiently, PVC pipe connected to a rotator sprinkler head is the method of choice in arid parts of the country. These devices can be adjusted so that water is directed where it needs to go and is not overwatering sidewalks, driveways, or buildings.

While common in the west, installing permanent underground irrigation pipeline is an expensive and often aggravating process that requires a lot of forethought about exactly where you want water to go for the next decade or so. For supplemental watering during the occasional drought, a temporary system can be rigged up by connecting garden hose to metal risers equipped with rotary or fixed head sprinklers. The Ohio Irrigation Association has a helpful guide for deciding the right type of sprinkler head for the type and size of garden area that is being watered at https://ohioia.com/news/choosing-the-right-sprinkler-head-sprays-vs-rotors/. The sprinkler set-ups can also be connected to a hose bibb timer to automate watering.

Rainbird, Hunter, and Orbit are all reputable brands with helpful websites, and the best way to get started is to find which brand is in stock at your favorite hardware store. You’ll want to check that your water pressure and hose and fitting diameters meet the requirements of the irrigation equipment.

While vegetable gardens need about five minutes of daily watering to get them through hot dry spells, new native plants benefit from less frequent but deeper watering. The University of Minnesota Extension has a helpful timeline for the frequency of watering newly planted trees and shrubs at https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/watering-newly-planted-trees-and-shrubs.

The recent heat also has me giving more thought to rain barrels. The equipment has become readily available, consisting of a diverter installed in a downspout that is connected to a lidded barrel. The barrel has a hose connector, spigot, or both to enable watering and are usually 55 gallons in volume. According to the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District (CSWCD), the average homeowner can capture more than 2,000 gallons of water a year by using a rain barrel. Information on CSWCD rain barrel workshops is available at https://cuyahogaswcd.org/service-programs/rain-barrels/.

Spring plant sales lead many people to think that planting is a spring activity, but the recent heat wave illustrates why fall planting of new trees, shrubs, and other perennial plants is recommended, so they have more time to acclimate before the heat sets in.

So if heat waves are keeping you inside and away from your garden, set up an automatic watering system to keep your plants alive and kick up your feet to peruse catalogs and websites to start planning your fall planting.