Question
We have been experiencing drought conditions in part of Marylands Eastern Shore. I have a fairly small piece of property around a 1/2 acre that is heavily wooded with large mature oaks, poplars and dogwoods. My concern is the dogwoods which start looking wilted. These are native dogwoods and are 15 to 20' tall. my question concerns watering them. As you can imagine putting a sprinkler in the woods with these other large mature trees around seems to be doing little. I prefer to water the dogwoods separately. When  watering these or any smaller trees for that matter to get them through a drought, is it OK to water them around the trunk area out to a distance about as large as what would be the diameter if they were in a large pot. In other words how important is it that they be watered out to the drip line of the tree? Does it mean anything to wet the leaves and trunk? I would prefer, due to water cost, to be as efficient as possible. This is only to get them through until the next rain but important as I have seen some dogwoods already die. Thank you, Jack

Answer
The majority of the root system is located in the outer area of the width of a tree. Watering this area is much better than  near the trunk. Trees need about 1 inch of water per week-place a pan under the tree and turn the sprinkler on and when the pan has 1 inch of water in it stop. During a drought I would water every third day using this method. Watering the foliage will not help but could cause fungi to grow on the wet foliage. The area to concentrate with the watering is the half way to the dripline and out to about this same distance past the dripline. If you have not done so  mulching around the tree with not more than 3 inches of organic mulch not piled up on the tree trunk out about three feet will help hold moisture around the tree.