If you are like the majority of Central Texans, you spent some part of the last weekend in the sun, probably near water.  As some of us fail to reapply sunscreen properly and pay the price, it begs the question:  Why don’t plants sunburn?  They are living.  They are in the sun quite a bit.  They don’t use sunscreen.

Plants need sunlight for photosynthesis, so the idea that they would burn from the sun sounds silly.  In actuality, they produce a waxy cuticle on their surface which protects them in many ways, including the sun's unforgiving rays.  It also provides a barrier to pathogens and prevents plants that live in wet climates from getting too wet and plants that live in drier ones from getting too dry.

Keeping your plants hydrated helps them produce this cuticle, made of cutin.  In rare instances, I plant can get ‘burned’ or have bleaching (photo oxidation) when there is not enough moisture to produce chlorophyll, which will make it lose it’s color.

So in other words:  Water your plants, they can protect themselves from this Texas sunshine.  Unfortunately, it’s not so easy for humans!