Dealing with intense climate conditions -A guide to grow in coastal and arid climate zone of Pakistan
Are you a gardener who desperately wants to know how to deal with extreme climate zone of Pakistan? If you have ever wished that you could do gardening easily in extremely hot climate conditions, wasted your essential time on reading “expert” books that simply don’t deliver. Felt that gardeners know about something that you don’t, believe me I was once the same.
I took a stand, bought dozens of books. I spent hundreds of hours on reading growing articles and forums, sourcing for tips and actions how to deal with extreme coastal and arid weather conditions, and eventually I started to understand the whole picture.
With this understanding I can finally do gardening in intense situations in ease. In this guide I am going to share that information which is going to make your gardening fruitful in these extreme type of climate regions with less efforts and disappointments.
Climate zones of Pakistan
It is very important to understand the climate zone of your region in order to be a successful gardener.
lowland regions of Pakistan are mostly arid or semi-arid, that means high summer temperatures, loads of heat weaves and low percentages of moisture in the air which can damage the crops, well good thing is that soil does not freezes in arid and semi-arid climate zone, making it possible to grow vegetation all year round. The highland climate of Pakistan is composed of mild summer and cold winters taking increased percentages of moisture in air because of having extra rainfall than arid and semi-arid climate zone, but in winter soil freezes and makes it impossible to grow any vegetation.
Coastal climate zone is also a challenge for gardener as it has hot-long summers, as coastal resident might also have to deal with salty air, sandy and saline soil.
In this guide we are only going to talk about how to grow vegetation in arid and coastal climate zone, these climate zones are the victim of high temperatures, dry air and poor soil.
Definition of aridity
Arid aims toward dryness, and is used to describe the climate itself, and the land below it. In such regions the ability to produce agricultural crops is limited. Typically on arid lands the evaporation of water from the land exceeds the rainfall. The land may be considered according to the degree of aridity. The word, “arid” does not perfectly characterize the soils, however, for they may differ in many ways. Often they are alkaline or saline.
Most plants would like slightly acidic pH soil. The best pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.0, above 7 the soil is considered as alkaline, below 7 is considered as acidic and 7 itself is considered as neutral.
The difference between arid and semi-arid soil is that semi-arid climate zone has better soil because of having more organic matters in soil than arid climate zone soil.
Native plants -key to trouble free gardening
One of the most effective technique to deal with extreme climate is to end all of your excuses and start using the power of native plants.
Native plants are those plants that naturally occur in your region so they have established to go well with local environments. They are also called ‘indigenous plants’.
Why native plants? Simple yet motivating gardening advice for people living in the coastal and arid climate zone. You can have a garden that survives in local tough climate without compromising on style, by using resilient, local native plants.
They have adapted to survive in the tough conditions of poor soil and environment. Using local native plants in your garden benefits your wallet, because they are inexpensive. You can have a great knowledge about your native plants by visiting your local nurseries.
There are some local native plants that I know always grow well in coastal and arid climate of Pakistan are following:
· Neem (Azadirachta indica)
· Ber (Ziziphus vulgaris)
· Amaltas (Cassia fistula)
· Lai (Tamarix orientalis)
· Kirrir (Capparis aphyla)
· Kandi (Prosopis cineraria)
· Bargad tree
Other plants which are going to grow well in these conditions are:
· Corn
· Common beans
· Watermelon
· Okra
· Papaya
· Guava
· Golden Apple
· Tamarind (imlee)
· Date palm
· Sunflower
And other fruiting trees like mangoes, chiku, and oranges. When purchasing fruit producing plants one should always contact local nurseries.
7 Reasons to use native plants:
· Drought tolerant
· Requires less water
· Don’t need much fertilizers and pesticides
· Provides food and habitat for local wildlife
· Low maintenance
· They are suited to all landscaping styles
· And also does well in pots.
Maintenance of Growing plants
The maintenance of growing plants is essential in order to make them thrive, whether you are growing natives or anything else. Maintenance is necessary and is mainly done by mulching, fertilizing and some other methods which are described below.
Mulching
Mulching should be done by using a thick layer of straw bales and hay bales over the surface of your soil, the difference between straw and hay is that straw is stock (dried stock) and hay is grass (dried grass). You can use whatever is easy available to you.
Benefits of mulching. When a layer of mulch is added over a soil it assists in reducing evaporative water loss by up to 70% it means less water requirements which further leads to less efforts, retains moisture which is very crucial in summer time to keep soil temperatures down which benefits the roots of your plants and let them thrive with no pause, as long as the soil of your garden is well moist, hotness and dryness of the air wouldn't bother your plants much. Always remember “happy roots better fruits”.
Mulching is the best way to kill weeds which are competing with your plants. Weeds are not good companions of your garden they take away nutrients and water from the soil
Fertilizing your plants
Always go full organic, you will be surprised with the quality of your crops and plants.
Use organic matters like manures and organic compost, I prefer compost over manure because it is already well composted, it is also free from pathogens and the most important thing is that composts are always weed free.
Well if you are using manure than it should be well composted brown in color not dark and has a reduced amount of odor, if your manure is not well composted you should avoid using it.
Benefits of fertilizing with compost. In order to achieve better, healthy and vigorously growing plants organic compost is your friend. Compost when worked in with sandy or saline soil increases the capacity of soil to hold water, again more water holding capacity=less frequent watering, and because of this less effort is required.
Organic matters in compost also benefits to change the soil pH of alkaline soil to acidic making it suitable for most of the plants to grow well.
Watering your potted plants
Potted plants need more care than those planted out in garden. Water potted plants regularly in summer, best time to water your garden and pots is before sunrise.
Some plants may need re-potting in a bigger pot or in your garden whenever they grow too big for their pots. While transplanting or re-potting, it’s best to transplant your plants in ground or in a new pot in late afternoon. Transplanting at late afternoon helps your plants to recover from the shock which is done at the time of transplanting. It could also be done in a cloudy day or early morning.
Using shade cloth
When transpiration occurs in a hot summer day, some plants have mechanism to decrease the rate of evaporative water loss by curling their leaves, heat stresses the plant and reduces the growth.
Shade cloth is used to decrease the intensity of light that plants are getting in order to reduce the heat stress. Shade cloth is suitable for growing plants which are short in height, while native plants don’t need shade cloth, most of them grow fast, big and become shade providing trees.
