How much do you water your garden? Greeny thoughts.

I'm a bit awkward with pouring drinking water into my garden just for vanity, really. We don't have a possibility to collect rain water in butts so it's literally drinking water I'm giving to my plants.

My schedule in an urban small garden is to give a good soak to borders once/ twice a week, and only water the lawns if desperate. I focus on new plants and shallow rooted bedding ones, and give the established, deep rooted ones a good soak very rarely. Mulching and targeted watering to reach the roots are in place to minimise waste.

The plants would thrive with more watering, but I feel guilty to have the tap open for an hour for a week just to make my garden look better. Then again, we are flying to Greece for a week soon so just that one trip will smack my green intentions with a sledgehammer in one blow....

How often do you water? How much? If using tap water, how many bathtubfuls would you estimate you use on plants a week?

 

I can remember when our water rates first became an additional charge on top of the general rate. It was £15 a year. This was in the early seventies.

Then the utilities were sold off to private companies.
United Utilities provide our water and sewage disposal, for which I pay £860 per annum.
The reason this is so high is because this company thinks more about shareholders' dividends than upgraded the system.
We can't have a shower after 1.00am as the water pressure is too low. They reduce the pressure at night as otherwise the many unfixed leaks would get worse.
We live in what was the Mersey flood plain, so the soil is alluvial and quick draining.
I put as much water on my garden as it needs and in this weather that's quite a lot. I have two pop-up lawn sprinklers and a leaky hose system the feeds all the borders. Then there's all the pots and the front garden for which I use a hose.
Here in the North West there's no shortage of water. Surplus water runs off into the rivers and then the sea. We're told it's impractical to try to move water from an area where there's a surplus to any where there's a shortage.
I don't feel at all guilty for using a commodity for which I think I'm being grossly overcharged.

 

I water as little as possible, I never water established plants, I cant see the point, I do water veg as a last resort.
Grass can die,it wont, saves me mowing it, I actually like brown grass, its a sign of a good summer and always comes back.

I top up my water butts with a hose, nigh on impossible to catch enough rainwater for all my pots etc. plus the water then warms which is much better than straight from a hose.

I also top up my pond when it needs it, it doesn't leak, but its surprising how much is lost through evaporation.

I don't feel guilty. I pay dearly for the stuff I put in the pond and on the garden.
My biggest gripe is that they charge me for disposal of the water I use in the garden as well, it's daylight robbery, but ofwat think it is fair.
So what use are they, not to to the consumer anyway.

 

I'm using less water now that my 3000 gall koi pool I had for over thirty years has been filled in and paved over. The pool was on a 24/7 trickle change as are most. That was an awful lot of water. Still don't feel guilty.

 

I have an external water meter and so don't pay the sewage charge on water for the garden.
Greenhouse and pots get priority, followed by soft fruit and the vegetable plot, then freshly planted things get watered until established. I have several water butts that are used as much as possible.

 

I water veg and pots when it don't rain

 

I just water when the baskets and pots need it. In hot spells I would water the borders. The lawns only rarely in very hot spells. As you live in Tyneside I don't think you need to worry about water usage yet, you have the most in the country up there

 

Water the lawn, veg and certain plants that like moisture. Newly planted things too. I try to grow plants that like the conditions here, viz., dry and free draining. An advantage of such plants is that slugs etc tend not to enjoy it as much as in a damper garden

 

We don't water much, except for newly planted ones and those in pots......the rest have to tough it out until they really get a bad case of the droops then they will get some,but to be honest ( don't want to appear too mean) they very rarely get to that stage.

 

I water when needed. The tubs get watered every other day when the weather is hot. Last year it was every day. Established plants get watered very rarely. Annuals in the ground are watered until they are established. Grass doesn't get watered. Last year we had brown crispy grass but its come back ok-ish.

I use a mixture of rain water in butts and tap water.

I'll water on a feed once a month, more often with greedy plants

 

The pot plants and greenhouse are the only things I water. We have a water recapture system in place to keep the pond topped up, including a large storage tank and release it when the pond level drops. Lawn never gets watered even when it goes brown. It’ll recover in autumn. I also water recently planted shrubs during their first summer. On the whole I to grow things that will cope with the conditions.