Watering the garden- environmental dilemma

Watering the garden is becoming an obviously wasteful act. What are your thoughts, and have your watering habits changed over the years?

I don't have the possibility for water butts so mostly use tap water. Clean drinking water that is, and it makes me quite uncomfortable nowadays to pour it into the garden when in all other aspects of life I try to change my habits into less resource wasting ones.

The difference a good watering makes in the garden is significant, less watering means the plants are ok and more watering means they are lush.

Must-do watering is still on to keep new and potted plants alive, but the grass is now proudly going yellow by August and I'm focusing on more draught tolerant plants in general.

However, I do still water with the hosepipe and it makes me increasingly uncomfortable as we are all so very aware of the shortages of clean water globally.

I wonder what our gardens would evolve to if watering were banned altogether?

 

I have been fortunate in always having water butts and a few years I got a large 1600 L tank to take the water from the new greenhouse; not the prettiest thing in the world, but I use a lot less mains water. I still use the hose as there are areas that the water tank can't reach. Apart from things in pots plants only get watered when newly planted or obviously struggling in a really dry spell.

 

To talk of a global water shortage is a misnomer. Some parts of the world have little or none, other areas have plenty. Here in Scotland, we have so much that we send some to England. I am perfectly happy to water the garden with a hose as what little I use will be topped up by rain somewhere in Scotland in the time it takes me to do the watering. Not only that, but compared to the amount the water companies lose through burst and leaky pipes it is a drop in the ocean, pun intended. We don't have water metering here in Scotland so I don't know if I would be as blase if we did.
I have a water butt fed by one side of the roof of my shed and it is always full to the brim. If there was a hose ban in the area I would use that for essential watering but until then I will get the hose out.

 

I rarely water garden plants, mostly if it doesn't survive without watering it not worth the effort.

I do water pots, and I have lots of them, usually in weather like that expected this week some will need watering twice a day.
I have 6 of those blue barrel type butts, the kind they used to concentrated fruit juice in years ago.
In hot weather I have to fill them with the hose, and I might need to do that to all 6 each week in summer.
I also have to top up my pond.
And I'm on a meter, but I probably use a lot less water than most houses in my street use in other ways.

 

It's arrosage à gogo here, from the spring-fed farm reservoir and the 3000l tanks buried to catch all the rainwater from the roof. There's no way I could grow packed mixed borders without watering through dry spells, which can last anything up to 6 weeks. The polytunnel gets a good soaking every two days and the terrace pots/ citrus are watered every day.
If in the future I have to change the plants/my habits, then it would be extremely useful to have some information on root habits of trees, shrubs and perennials. It's something sadly lacking, but just as important as shade or soil PH requirements. Roses, Magnolias and Pecan-nut trees, for example.....all strong, deep roots so they dive down into the clay and find moisture. Camellias, Sarcococca and Hydrangeas are shallow rooted and suffer badly during the summer without watering.

 

if it needs water it gets water...

 

I very rarely need to water anything due to my heavy clay soil, and I'm already thinking ahead in terms of future watering requirements and growing an increasing number of drought-tolerant plants like eryngiums, salvias, scabiouses, knautias. Lots of shrubs which when established never need watering. Container plants in the largest pots possible so they hopefully never dry out. Yes, I have a few plants I love which require more watering like Purple Loosestrife and Hemp Agrimony, but most of the time they are watered out of my single water butt and are at the back of the border so the soil is shaded and hardly ever dries out. Only time I actually bother to fill the watering can from the hose is when newly-planted things are given their first 2-3 waterings to establish, then they are typically left to take care of themselves with the rare exception of extremely dry periods, of course. Personally I thoroughly enjoy researching drought-tolerant plants that I can add to my garden and eventually hope to make it as low-maintenance as I possibly can!

Nick

 

We live in a region that is (usually) blessed with lots of rain, although 2020/21 have been extremely dry.
We bought the house together with a ground water pump and ground water levels are only a few meters below surface level and are stable, no matter how much water the region uses. So using a little bit of electricity we have access to almost infinite amounts of water. But even so, we know we are the exception and I think one should always try planting greens that are indigenous and capable of suviving the climate they grow in. So watering is something i only do for freshly planted saplings or if we are struck with an unusually long dry spell.
Luckily, most of our plants seem to have understood that and they roots go down to ground water levels. So even during months of massive drought, our trees, rhubarb and others don't care in the least.

 

I think it depends on how well established your garden is. I've been in this house less than two years, so a great many of the perennials and quite a few shrubs in my garden are less than a year old, or if older were only started from seed last year. And I have inherited a number of very big mature trees that suck up a lot of moisture from the ground.

So I find myself hosing the whole beds any time we get more than 7-10 days without rain (which happens a lot down here.. we've had very little rain in the last 3 months) otherwise things start to suffer. It's big job since it's a half acre plot - a good 2 hours - and I use mains water (edit: I should add, I never water my lawns). I don't like it, it feels wasteful and irresponsible, plus it's 2 hours I could have spent gardening. I have two 230 litre water butts but they would empty very quickly so I have to reserve that water only for ericaceous plants and topping up the pond.

I like to think to that in a year or two I'll be able to water a lot less, and more selectively, as the plants mature and the root systems develop.

 

We have six water butts. I water every border ( different ones each night) once a week however all newly planted plants get watered regularly until they are established. I also save washing up water throughout the day ( not the main cooked meal water) I have a mesh over a bucket to catch any particles and that strains the water. It's surprising how much you use just washing cups up......and of course hands too!. It certainly waters most of our pots. We also keep soap and a bucket under both garden taps where pots, garden tools and very mucky hands are washed and this too is used on the borders.
We very, very rarely have to get out the hosepipe, most years ..never.

We are fortunate in some respects ,like Nick is, to have a high percentage of clay in our soil...the lakes opposite us were once clay quarries many years ago.

We never water our lawns though.

 

We usually get plenty of rain here so in a dry spell the soil below the surface doesn't dry out too much, therefore I only water pots and baskets, but if I see a plant in the ground wilting I will water it.
When I water a plant in the ground I use a watering can, I haven't got a hose pipe, I find it too much of a bother reeling them out and back in again. A watering can is easier and you can concentrate the water where it's needed.

 

Of course I am in a totally different scenario. Consequently in the ground I have drought tolerant plants. I don't utilise annuals/bedding pants. On the odd occasion I have had Petunias but they have gone a coupe of years. I have lots of pots/tubs and they are watered regularly. We have a 19,000 litre cistern (concrete water deposit) under the front patio (Dance Floor), connected to the gutters, but we can go five months without rain and little in between so it has become redundant.

I don't know about the towns/cities but here in the country we have never had a water ban. On the other hand, the Portuguese are not gardeners most place looked like abandoned lots with the odd rose bush or shrub. A neighbour (now deceased) asked me many years ago why I grew things I couldn't eat. However, she came over every day (unfortunately) to examine everything!

When we came here Garden Centers were unheard of.. I remember in 1984 we found a Dutch nursery where we bought shrubs for our apartment complex. Now we have some of the best and biggest in Europe ... and gardens are starting to look like gardens.

 

My Thames Water supply is metered so a precious commodity! I do have a water butt and also a couple of watering cans beside the kitchen door, which get filled with any water from rinsing veggies, and the the runoff from the hot water tap while that heats up.

Plants in pots get watered, and plants that have recently been planted out in the borders if they need it. If we have a long dry spell I might get the hose out of the shed and give everything a good soaking - but that's something I do much more rarely than I used to. In the days when I had a lawn I had a sprinkler - something hard to envisage now! It's helpful that the style of the garden has actually changed quite a lot over the years, to reflect my own tastes but also climate changes. The salvias, silver-leaved plants and succulents I have recently been adding don't need much watering!