Hi Sara, I just wanted to mention that after 5 years of watering in the evening, I have finally discovered what has been causing my rust and disease outbreaks - Watering in the evening! It turns out that moist damp soil overnight is exactly what diseases, particularly yellow rust, need to have an outbreak. For the last several years, I've been spraying with Daconil, trying to clip every leaf that showed the disease, figured it must be coming from the surrounding trees. So this year, my schedule having recently changed, I decided to water in the morning. No more diseases. None. The only thing that I have trouble with this year is spider mites. I've tried everything on those and it only "helps" slow them down, not eradicates. My advice about watering is water in the morning before 10am everyday. That gives the soil and any incidentally wet leaves all day to dry out before the evening sets in and diseases try to spread. If it rains and your plants are new, they may can skip a day. If they are established, month or more, they may still need a little water even if it rains - depending on how much it rains. I let mine dry out a day if they got over 2 inches of rain in one day. Anything less, and I keep a watchful eye on the soil to make sure it doesn't dry out too much. The drying out is important as it triggers the plant to bloom more.
Hi Sara, I just wanted to mention that after 5 years of watering in the evening, I have finally discovered what has been causing my rust and disease outbreaks - Watering in the evening! It turns out that moist damp soil overnight is exactly what diseases, particularly yellow rust, need to have an outbreak. For the last several years, I've been spraying with Daconil, trying to clip every leaf that showed the disease, figured it must be coming from the surrounding trees. So this year, my schedule having recently changed, I decided to water in the morning. No more diseases. None. The only thing that I have trouble with this year is spider mites. I've tried everything on those and it only "helps" slow them down, not eradicates. My advice about watering is water in the morning before 10am everyday. That gives the soil and any incidentally wet leaves all day to dry out before the evening sets in and diseases try to spread. If it rains and your plants are new, they may can skip a day. If they are established, month or more, they may still need a little water even if it rains - depending on how much it rains. I let mine dry out a day if they got over 2 inches of rain in one day. Anything less, and I keep a watchful eye on the soil to make sure it doesn't dry out too much. The drying out is important as it triggers the plant to bloom more.