Think you don’t need to worry about watering the garden because it has rained? Think again.

“Keep checking the soil to make sure that it is actually moist,” said Spencer Campbell, Plant Clinic manager at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle. “Don’t assume there has been enough rain for the water to soak down to where your plants can actually use it.”

Parts of the Chicago area were still in a condition of moderate drought in mid-August, according to NOAA’s Drought Monitor.

Plants need a steady supply of moisture in the layer of soil where their roots spread out beneath the surface: in the top foot for trees and the top 6 inches for most other plants. If enough water hits the soil surface, gravity will pull it down through the root zone and plant roots will be able to absorb what they need. But

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