Seasonal6 min read
What to plant the week after the monsoon breaks
The three-week window after the rains is the best planting weather Pakistan gets all year, and almost nobody uses it.
By Muhammad Sami
Everyone plants in spring. It is the obvious time, the weather is pleasant, and it is when the nurseries are busiest. It is also, for most of Pakistan, the second-best planting window of the year.
The best one arrives now — the two or three weeks after the monsoon breaks, when the ground is soaked to depth for the first time since March, the air is still warm enough for roots to grow, and the punishing heat has gone. A plant put in the ground now has eight weeks of good root growth before winter slows it down.
Why the soil matters more than the air
Roots grow when soil is warm and moist. In May the soil is warm but bone dry below the surface, so a newly planted tree spends its energy surviving rather than establishing. In January the soil holds moisture but is too cold for much root activity.
Right now you have both at once, and it lasts about three weeks. A tree planted in this window will be measurably better established by spring than the same tree planted in March.
What to put in now
These are the things that benefit most from an autumn planting.
- Bougainvillea — establishes fast in warm wet soil, and flowers the following summer instead of sulking.
- Palms and large trees — the root ball knits into damp ground far more readily than into dry.
- Hedging: dwarf ixora, thunbergia, malpighia. Planted now, closed up by next summer.
- Fruit saplings, especially guava, custard apple and barbados cherry.
- Groundcover and turf — the one time of year you can lay a lawn without watering it twice a day.
What to leave until spring
Not everything benefits. Anything frost-tender that has not had time to harden off will struggle through its first winter — adenium, pachypodium and most of the caudex succulents are better bought in March.
Deciduous fruit, particularly dwarf peach, is also better planted bare-root in the depths of winter when it is fully dormant.
One thing people get wrong
Because the ground is already wet, it is tempting to skip the watering-in. Do not. Watering a new plant in is not about moisture — it is about settling the soil into contact with the root ball and driving out air pockets. Skip it and the roots sit in a void and dry out even in wet ground.
Water it in heavily on the day, then leave it alone until the top few centimetres dry.
