Climate Warming - Lack of Rain/Water

As it seems the summers are warming up and becoming drier.

My garden is approx 13m x 13m and North facing with borders approx 1.5m depth on 3 sides the rest is lawn. So at this time of year the garden spends most of the time in the shade from the house. I have water butts for plants that show signs of needing water, but as this year they lasted 3/4 weeks with no rain to refill.

So thinking of replacing the lawn with something as this year it totally browned out. The lawn area is a play area for grandchildren and chilling.

Paving would most likely make the garden drier with the run-off, enlarging the borders most likely need more water.

Any suggestions for the lawn area. ?

 

A gravel garden would work with either plants directly into the ground or in raised beds. Depending on the age of your grandchildren, it could be a little harsh for them though if they fall.

Internet images

 

Would artificial grass be too far out of your budget?

 

Depends what you want to do. I seeded my lawn from scratch about 12 years ago. I chose a hard wearing mix. Before I seeded it I dug in a load of spent mushroom compost. The lawn barely suffered throughout our heat wave despite the fact I never watered it once throughout, due to concerns about water shortages. It was just fine. The only change I made to my normal routine was to ban the wife from getting the mower out. Cut grass loses huge amounts of water.

My front garden (south facing) is a different story. I can't get anything to thrive out there. Apart from the aspect the key difference is I never did much to the soil. It's mostly just clay so it's either waterlogged or bone dry, never in between. I must do something about that but my focus has always been the back garden.

So long story short, I wouldn't worry about the garden too much, once it's prepped to be resilient.

 

Personally I dont mind brown grass, it means I dont have to cut it.
You could replace it with bark on a membrane.

Make the borders bigger and plant with drought tolerant plants or even create exotic borders that you really never need to water once established.

 

Unless you are frantic about your lawn, I would encourage you to grow better turf, let it become more resilient, allow the grass to more fully express itself (leave it longer) and feed it with humus as compost dressing. Avoid compacting it when wet,maybe tolerate broadleaf such as clover.
Mowing can be restructured so as to leave a longer sward. Grass naturally grows roots at least as long as the leaf. The longer the roots, the better able it is to reach water and minerals. This years summer was the ' fifty year' extreme, not the norm.