Hi pm2
Well here in Pensacola watering is always an issue for me. We are short in rainfall the last couple of years...I have my favorite bed on a soaker hose. The hose is under the mulch. (Mulch is EVERYTHING, I am always scheming for more mulch! ) Before I turn that on in the early a.m., I fill up a bunch of buckets for hand watering. while the soaker is running I hand water whatever needs it. I feel the benefits of hand watering over the sprinklers are the plants get a good drink and can go a week even here in FL if they have to. If we get no rainfall in a week I try to hand water twice a week. I also use a (lighweight!)trash can and drag that to the far end of the yard... to the end of the hose anyway and fill that to the brim and dip into that to water. Afterwards its easy to drag an empty can back... also with hand watering you know how much the plant is getting. I don't use sprinklers at all. With the mildwew issue here its not worth it. As far as my plant starts I havent planted out yet I tuck them in semi shade, under shrubs,trees etc. where they can hang out till fall and can still be transplanted here. I have a lot of lawn but I dont care if it lives. It refuses to die and I never water it. It is still green and looks better than the neighbor who has the sprinklers on twice a day and chemlawn here every month. I let the clippings fall back in when I mow it and keep it a bit taller when it is dry.Good Luck!p.s. The soaker runs 3-4 hours. The hand water takes an hour to do 6 beds and the dog and I are inside and having coffee.
Giverny/Susan

The lawn has inground sprinklers that water some of the shrubs. My father just put on a couple soaker hoses running under/around front bushes but everything else depends on rain. No sprinkler heads or soakers water any gardens I put in or the Rose garden my father's had on south side of house for 30 years. Roses get good soak once a week from hose.

Hand watering until the cows come home! Forgot the babies from seed need to be kept "evenly moist" until they get stronger like new transplants of plants bought. Refill 2 watering cans repeatedly and lug them around to far flung beds.

Butterfly Garden is watered very carefully as there's already black spot on everything around here this year and don't want to encourage powdery mildew since can't use chemicals to get rid of it.

Got 100 ft. hose (supposedly professional) to reach two gardens but it gets so kinked up it's a major pain so I rarely use it. Might get one of those roll-up things to put it around and maybe that'll keep it from twisting itself into a snit. Getting tired of lugging watering cans and it's VERY early in the season with lots more heat left to go.

Maybe I won't mind the watering so much after seedlings and new plants are more established. In sweltering 90+ degree days feel kind of tied to my father's house so things don't die for lack of water. I wanted the plants so they're all mine to water.

The containers need water pretty frequently. I knew that but ignored the warnings that might be as often as 2-3 times a day in 100 degree heat like we had earlier this week and last. Got some "AquaSpikes" that you use with empty soda bottles filled with clean sand for continuous water flow in containers. Now that I look at plant containers, all of which aren't large enough to hide bottles I'm having second thoughts. Going to use dark green plastic spray paint to try and help bottles blend in with foliage (when seedlings/little plants grow) so they don't look cheesy. I think after another month of hand watering I might get over the aesthetics problem...LOL. Should have put "water retentive crystals" in some containers but didn't for some reason.

I've seen the "Aqua Globes" advertised on TV which are more decorative but they don't have sand in them to control moisture release. Pretty bad when you're paying attention to infomercial solutions!

People warned me I'd have too much hand watering to do but I was obsessed with the goal so ignored them. Compared to digging & amending all new beds, kneeling on the ground to plant and hauling compost, etc. for 12 hours a day I think watering may get old but not as hard on the knees, back and everything else in this 50+ body. Gardeners older than I are like Energizer bunnies and have gotten used to it so I don't really have an excuse to whine.

We have sandy soil. We dig very large holes, add lots of organic matter at planting time & keep everything mulched with a 4" layer of leaf mould & compost mixed. For us, it does a much better job of keeping the soil cool & moist than wood chips & we have access to an abundance of leaves.

A one-gallon transplant gets a planting hole about 20" square. We also do not crowd plants. Each has their own root area & water supply. As our gardens have grown, we've edited out perennials that were too crowded & competing with each other for water/nutrients. We aim for beds where one plant's outer leaves just barely touch their neighbors & an inch or two between foliage clumps is even better. We want to keep the gardens full looking & the plants foliage shades the ground but if we plant too close the garden required extra water.

We plant one-gallon size perennials whenever possible. They just do better for us without supplemental water than smaller pots. I've tried the Bluestone route &, wow, that's just too much work & water for me. Plus, they ship mostly in the spring & that's not optimum planting time in our garden.

We do 90% of our planting mid-August through mid-November. Our 'theory' is this...

We have several matures trees on the property with extensive root systems plus dozens of shrubs.

In the spring, the trees/shrubs take up copious quantities of water to push out new leaves. Then keep gulping water to support those leaves plus make flowers in many cases. If we plant in the spring our transplants have to compete with those trees. Also, we get less rainfall in May, June, & July than other months. That's a losing battle, in our opinion. We ended up with plants that required frequent supplemental water & that led to weak rooted plants. A viscious circle.

In the fall, the trees are not using as much water as they prepare for winter dormancy. Plus, rainfall, in our location, is higher August-January. We use that window of opportunity to get plants into the ground & well rooted before the trees start a new cycle & the heat arrives again. After planting, we do not provide supplemental water (except for large B&B trees) except for a big drink when planting.

The plants put down deep roots & seem to handle summer's heat & less frequent rainfall pretty well. Even our hydrangea hedge does not need supplental watering. I only water pots & I keep those mulched heavily also. I've given up on smaller clay pots. It's impossible to keep them watered without almost daily attention. So, we've been slowly building our assortment of large containers & incorporating them permanently into the landscape. A well mulched 20-24" pot can go a week between waterings.

I use a lot of perennials in my seasonal pots. After I lazily left a florist's basket planted with perennials that I received as a gift outside one winter & it survived & bloomed the following spring...I quickly got the message. Now, my container plantings are 50-75% perennials & the rest annuals. Annuals take more water than perennials. By limiting my use of those plants I reduce the need to provide water yet still have benefit of the color annuals provide. I grow everything from Shasta daisies to hostas to huechera to bamboo to roses in pots left in place through the winter.

If a plant can't make it on its own in our gardens then we don't replace it. We provide decent growing conditions, live in a reasonably mild climate, & average about 50" of precipitation annually. If that's inadequate...then heck with that plant! I lose way more plants to winter wet than I do to summer draught.

I'm handicapped & can't drag hoses. DH is only here 2 days/week & doesn't want to spend his entire weekend watering. So, for the past ten years we've put a lot of effort into creating self-sufficient gardens. Through trial & error, we've learned what works for us & what doesn't. We are convinced though that the original planting is the most important step in growing most anything. We've just come off a several day heat wave & I didn't water anything except two hanging baskets. I've been inside with the A/C! ;)

/tricia

Try using drip irrigation systems for areas with low water pressure. They typically have a pressure regulator on them that seriously reduces the pressure coming from the hose anyway. You also tap into the main line and put drip hose from the main line to each individual plant. On the end of each drip line, you can attach drip emitters that put out varying amounts of water so that large plants can get an emitter that puts out say 4 gallons of water per hour versus other emitters that only put out one gallon of water per hour.

On top of that the emitters can be buried under the mulch so that the water is not as likely to evaporate before actually being used by the plants.

Last summer we had 60+ days of over 90 degree weather and scant rainfall so much so that the whole southeatern US went into drought mode and here in NC conditions were much worse than other places. I ran the drip irrigation systems once a week for 2 hours at a pop and didn't loose a thing. Some plants might not have performed as well as they did in previous years, but at least they didn't die. This year we are already low on rainfall and have had two weeks of 90+ degree weather, most of the time above 95 degrees, and the drip systems have already been put into use.

For the things that haven't been planted yet, baby pools. Throw the plants in, put about 2 inches of water in the bottom, and you've just watered them for two days straight. Let them dry out a bit, then put 2 more inches of water in the pool.

For the in the ground stuff, I'm with Tricia. Plant it well, mulch it well, and everything but the real babies won't mind. I do have fairly heavy clay soil, which holds a lot of water, so can probably get away with more than people with sand. However, there is very, very little that I'm still watering the second year in the ground.

BTW, if you saw my garden Monday evening, you'd think we were sitting on top of a drought disaster area. However, Tuesday morning, after the heat let up a bit and the plants got a chance to recover, everything looked back to normal. The only thing I really had to water were the potted vegetables and the dahlia seedlings.

Since I live in an area with pretty good rainfall, I think I have it easy. I only water new plants, and only for the first week. Our lawn does brown out a bit in August since we dont water that either, but my gardens have done fine without help. For me, it's plant selection, where/how I plant, and generous mulch.

When we put plants in, I dig really big holes and mix in compost. I mulch heavily with chopped leaves. (Thanks to my husband who has retired his leaf blower & now runs them over with the mower/bagger & piles them up for me)

My plants migrate a lot. If they canÂt take the heat I move them to shadier & shadier spots until theyÂre happy. If they just wonÂt be happy, I let them go. There are so many plants that thrive I donÂt mourn the few fussy ones that wonÂt. They're just not meant for where I live. It gives me an opportunity to try something else.

I buy these big funnels used for oil changes and stick them in the soil and fill the top with water. This works really well during hot summer days and I'm at work. I have some tilted pots that dry out really bad so I needed to get the water down into the soil without washing out.

One problem is getting everything that needs doing, done before the heat arrives.

I always have to keep that in mind. Mulch helps a lot, sometimes not enough because I need a lot of it, am switching to decaying leaves I collected in large bins for some areas, wouldn't want a sprinkler system throwing water on the leaves when the sun is on them although I've been forced to water with the hose in the heat of the day that way or lose the plants.

I got a soaker hose for the bed in front which will help a lot. When it gets really hot, I've had to water it 3 times a day in the past, don't mulch that yet because I scattered seeds that grew too thick for that.

This year we've had so much rain it's unreal, I haven't had to do much watering at all. Floods everywhere, people being evacuated as I write on the Rock River and elsewhere. Last night set a record, 3.28 inches in 6 hours. There is a huge sink hole in the street about 1-1/2 miles from me, and one busy street is blocked because peoples' front lawns washed into the street and piled 3-4' high. Many streets closed. Just got done shovelling dirt and mulch that had washed off a couple areas onto the public sidewalk.

Send that rain south aliska. The whole southeast could use it!

giverny - a good idea about the garbage can of water hauled to the point where it is needed, then dipping out of it. So simple, I would not have thought of it! Thanks. Last year, I wanted one of those plastic water/spray containers on wheels, that when rolled, helped to pump the water thru the hose. The one I saw was 4gl., I think for $89. That's appx. two watering cans full, right? Guess it would be easier on the arms to roll 4gl. than to carry 2gl. in each hand; but, I'm still thinking about it. Anybody buy one and what's your opinion?

Drip irrigation is great. Look up a company called DripWorks. I bought their starter kit for roses last year and it was a great investment. It takes a while to set up, but it's very easy to do and expandable. Once I saw how much work it would save me, I decided to connect everything to it. I can water all my gardens at once and adjust each drip head to get the right amount of water to each plant. It's environmentally friendly too because the water goes to the ground and doesn't evaporate in the air like sprinklers do. For me it works better than soaker hoses because I garden on a hill. Also drip irrigation is permanently connected to the faucet and doesn't require hooking up a hose when you need to use it.

Of course, I haven't had to use it once this year. We've had way too much rain. All the lakes are at flood stage and the ground is completely saturated. My brother is supposed to visit this weekend and I'm hoping he'll be able to get here with all the road closings due to the flooding.

Rain barrels are the way to go. You can use em to fill up watering cans or you can attach soaker hoses. You can also locate them relatively near the area where you will need them.

As for the trash can idea... one of our rain barrels is just a trash can with the down spout going into it. If you get a trash can with wheels, you could use it to collect rain and still wheel it around.

Just put a hole in the lid that the down spout would fit pretty tightly into and then cut the down spout off at the right height... slip the lid onto the downspout, put the trashcan into position, and close the lid. Since this one doesn't have a spigot, we use it for dunking our watering cans into (fills much faster this way! And our daughter and her friends use it to fill their squirt guns!)

Trash can with wheels...yeah, better than my idea of hauling a water filled can around on a dolly. Bet that sucker would be heavy tho filled all the way and be difficult to push (or pull) with small wheels. How would a person rig up a hose to a plastic trash can if you didn't want to get the water out by dipping it out?
I also have the perfect place for a rain barrel and have been thinking of setting one up.

Well I would drag the hose into position, fill the can to the brim, start dipping...the hose continues to fill can as I'm emptying. So your not really dragging a full can around. When I finish a section I am dragging an empty can to next section. I use garbage cans for rainbarrels also. I just have to remember to put the lid on or the spouse will dump it out on me,i.e. mosquitoes and all...

Oh, I understand. Thanks, I'm going to try it. But not right away as we got a real soaker of a rain tonight - finally!

I watch the perpetual deluge befall my garden night after night, praying that God will stop the rains long enough for the ground to dry out, the water to stop seeping into the basement, and for my pond to stop overflowing its banks for the hundredth time.

Because our backyard is so muddy right now, I have not been able to plant anything for over a month. It makes going to my local nursery seem completely pointless.

When the weather is NOT like this, but back to a typical prairie dryness, I water deeply once a week - and that's it. I also plant only those specimens that are drought tolerant and native to midwestern soils. The exception being those plants that live around the pond and my roses (which are about as stubborn as I am).

Heather

Send that rain south aliska.

I would if I could. The water will be running down the Mississippi, but not to the southeast and other places where it is most needed.

I thought about drip irrigation but how do you deal with sidewalks? I do have the same problem with running a soaker hose over the sidewalk, did one in the back last year.

I'd really like some rain barrels, they say plants take better to rainwater than treated water, but they are not very attractive. Right now I have rain barrels in the form of 5 gal buckets in places where I actually got gutter replaced that is not doing the job, don't know what is wrong. It looks terrible. I was using what had collected to water plants but no sense in that now and shouldn't let it accumulate like that or could get in trouble. I've got 5 or 6 buckets full in one place in the back and have to ladle it out with a gal milk jug with the top cut out into smaller buckets so I can carry down the steps and empty it into the street. I can't carry the 5 gal buckets very far.

Here is what happened to some unfortunate homeowners 6 blocks from me from the rain and ground saturation. Ins doesn't cover mudslides (well the lady in the news video said hers didn't), and we've never had anything like this that I can remember. How do you repair something like this assuming it would even hold up? Shovel it back up with can't think of what it's called, endloader, backhoe? and tamp it in? They must have had to deal with it when the places were excavated originally. My terraces slope at about that angle but aren't nearly so high and only one tier.

On the news video, a guy in a truck stopped and offered to fix the sodded one for free, said he had to go get the equipment and would be back in about an hour. By the time I went around there late afternoon, no sign that anything had been done yet.

The third photo is a huge sinkhole where a street caved in last night. A lady and older kid had crawled under the yellow tape, so I asked here if she would grab a few shots for me and handed her my camera. She did a good job not being used to my camera. One kid was taking pictures with his cell.

{{gwi:231446}}

{{gwi:231447}}

{{gwi:231448}}

We are in voluntary restrictions now and headed towards mandatory ones later this summer/fall. For me, it's about planting drought-tolerant natives, mulching, and watching my yard turn brown in certain areas. Things like gaura and the Mexican primrose get cut back to the ground by July and I only water about half the beds and those only once a week until October. I still keep up with the fruit trees and the one small veggie bed no matter what, but mulch them deeply.

I am considering a greywater system too. This drought is serious.

My guy converted our plastic barrel into a rain barrel by simply adding a spigot at the bottom. Buy a spigot, drill proper sized hole, insert spigot, caulk with silicone. The spigot he used is actually plastic, has threads so a hose can be attached, and works great. We haven't added one to the trash can as we use it for dipping, but I'm assuming it would be done in much the same way. I've also seen them with a pvc contraption coming out of the bottom middle of the barrel and ending in a spigot... seems more convoluted than necessary to me.

As for rain barrels being attractive, that's what plants are for. I planted aztec grass and seedum around mine. Plus, it's in the back and can't be seen from the street. Thankfully my neighbor teaches science so she thinks it's cool. Then again, I'm more concerned about conservation than what my neighbors think, but I'm considerate enough to place them in the least obtrusive place. I don't tell them what to do in their yards... otherwise they'd all have gardens, or at least a few plants...

As to mosquitos... you can buy dunks (little donut shaped things) that you throw in the barrel to kill mosquito larvae. They're around 10 bucks for a pack of 6. I think they last a month.

icyveins, I've looked at diagrams for rain barrels, most are hooked up to the downspout. Your description makes it sound like I could do it if it would work but it wouldn't in the place I would need it most because there is something wrong with the way the roof is there and short gutter, have had it checked to make sure it is all clear. Thanks for the tip about the mosquito larvae because that is a concern to me, also a remote but possible danger to small children.

I guess gravity and a full barrel would provide enough pressure to make the hose work to at least partly drain the barrel, but when the level gets down far enough, you can't completely empty it I wouldn't think plus you might want to clean it now and then. I don't know.

So until somebody can figure out why the gutter isn't working and figure out a fix; if it's something I can do like dig a trench, install that black plastic hose stuff and bury it, I will do it if it will work. But whatever I do now won't work off the downspout because that is not handling the volume of water coming off the roof.

In the meantime, I can buy about 3 or 4 plastic trash cans with wheels which might help and could keep them covered with their lids. But they wouldn't look pretty but neater than those 5 gal pails plus if they aren't too full I can wheel them to the alley and dump them. I learned the hard way that those big tubs with rope handles freeze in the winter and crack in the bottom if there's any volume of water or ice accumulation in them. But forget winter for now.

Aesthetics are important to me, I care what the neighbors think but I care more what I think and I don't like looking at plastic junk sitting around although certainly useful in running my life. I don't care for plastic stuff that shows much anywhere in a business or landscaping setting to be frank, pots I have learned to like some; it's not my business what other people stick in their yards. I feel sorry for kids today that have their senses bombarded with all that colorful plastic stuff, I love natural materials, but that's just me again. But plastic is cheaper and practical, better if it's something you can put away and hide when you're done with it, so I just live with it. I didn't get the air conditioner put where I wanted it because of efficiency, so now I have to live with that thing and, yes, I can partly hide it with plants and am glad to have it for only the very hottest days or prolonged heat wave; otherwise I use heavy-duty commercial fans.

But there is no way even if I catch the runoff in my one worst spot that I can hide anything big with any plants, plus it's narrow and we have to get the lawn mower through there and the long attachment to the downspout has to be removed or stepped over for chores. Plus my new roof less than 5 years old sprang a leak last night, I was dog tired, took a nap, and now have insomnia and am feeling overwhelmed by trying to get all these problems and many more I didn't mention involving hiring people resolved and paid for. It's my problem, and I'm stuck with it. At least I don't have my hillside piled on the sidewalk and street tonight so I'm thankful for what isn't wrong and am going to try to sleep.

Heather, aliska - sorry to hear about your "too much of a good thing" and the repair problems. How very discouraging. In my area, it was cold temps that set us all back. Then a heat wave. And aliska, I know this is is off topic, but had to comment on your air conditioner comment. You sound just like me. I live in an old one-room school and refuse to stick an air conditioner out even one tall window with original wavy old glass. Instead, I suffer! ha. My friends think I'm crazy.
I use floor fans,too.

Still raining here this morning,but must do a walk around to see how things faired overnight. The old seviceberry shrub that is the focal point of one sunken garden had to be propped up with a 2 x 4 because of a record crop of berries and being rain-soaked, that doesn't help.

I finally got some sleep but am sure not rarin' to go. As soon as I get the rest of my seedlings planted out, target date by end of June, I'm going to try to dig a trench or swale for the big water problem, hope it works and get on to the next problem.

How neat to live in an old school! OH is a big state just like mine. I was talking about a central unit that my son had put in for me along with a new furnace. He took out the one window unit I had in the addition where I play on the computer, I washed the glass and woodwork, and it's so wonderful to be able to look out that window again and see my backyard. I'm grateful for having it, never had it in my life before, so am used to survival methods and literally hosing myself down or wetting my clothes when it gets unbearable. Also squirting a spray bottle on my arms and legs if I had to do something tough outside in the heat. It works except at night.

I hope you're careful in the heat. I endured it for years, am prone to heatstroke, but got by with those powerful fans, but it's nice to have it just in case and nice not to be trapped in one room when it's so bad I couldn't do anything outside or inside. When my kids were growing up, I was a divorced mom, we slept with the windows wide open and screens so the house cooled at night. Now I'm too afraid to do that because of the crime rate here and just was cracking the windows a couple inches so the house didn't cool off at night. My daughter got hers cut, and she was wakened and robbed in the middle of the night.

The few times I felt I needed the central ac last year, I felt guilty cooling the whole house for just one person, but if I get sick or need help, no one nowadays wants to work in any home without good ac in the summer.

My aunt used to talk about serviceberry, always wished I had room for grapes, rhubarb and black raspberries, have a few fruit trees. My clematis I had to prop up like that they got so heavy.

Better quit yakking and try to get at least one or two major things done today. I'm so happy about the soaker hose in front (back on topic). Solves a major problem and so what if it clogs and I have to buy one more, I should live so long lol, just 25' will do that one bed? The guy who sold it to me I told I wanted a short hose to connect it to so the drip wouldn't start until it hit the bed and not at the faucet. He found me a laundry hose for a washer that was just the right length, get home, didn't work, two female ends. I showed my daughter that I needed an adapter of some kind if they make it and how it should work, had to explain that I thought you have to leave the terminal end capped off so pressure would build up or most of the water would run through like a regular hose. Lo and behold she found one by the hoses and that problem is solved for now when I need to use it.

Now a lot of guys (and many gals these days) know these things, but I've had to learn to do so many things for myself and have to find out or figure out how to do it. This place I've gotten great help and advice, would be stuck way back on gardening/outdoor square one without it.

Hope you stay cool and the rest of the summer is a good one for you.

Aliska, a sidewalk might prove an issue with running the main drip line across or under. Of course if you have a faucet on the other side of the sidewalk, that will work also. Dripworks is where I got my two systems and a diverter valve that turns one of the systems into a two zoned system. I do have a small strip on one side of the sidewalk near the front walk that I ran the small drip line across by pushing it into the crevice where they cut an expansion joint in the concrete.

I agree with athenainwi. After having installed my first drip irrigation system from Dripworks, I wondered how I ever lived without one and promptly ordered a second system.

I didn't think it would be a good idea, like you said, to run it under or over the sidewalk, bad enough to run a hose across it for the soaker hose my neighbor loaned me last year and this. But it's so long, it has 3 turns and having to lift it in and out to hoe (I will mulch when I get to it), is almost more than I can bear. It's heavy and drags across plants to move so last year I never weeded except a few by hand, but with tomatoes in cages, it wasn't too bad. The soaker worked great for tomatoes in neat rows but is not going to work well for tiny plants and roses scattered more randomly. My roses are one long row but the companion plants are scattered.

Do you know what I really wish? I wish I had an old-fashioned pump and a cistern to collect all this water. That is not feasible but it would sure bring back memories, and I would love doing it. My grandmother couldn't have watered much of anything except her African violets inside, and things grew ok for her. She didn't mulch either, just probably did a little hoeing and had boards to walk on to get down the rows of what she had planted. She had a long perennial bed with shrubs and spring bulbs but no roses that I can remember.

If I get fed up enough this summer and depending on my health, I can have a guy come and install a faucet on the other side of the back sidewalk (front is a 'nuther animal but could have another one in the basement going through another outside wall on the other side of the sidewalk). Then I could irrigate all of it. I will remember Drip Works, usually think long and hard before making such a change especially in light of expensive repairs I need done, can afford some of it but not all at once and hard to prioritize. Irrigation would not be that expensive if I do it myself but takes thinking, planning and time.

I really really want my arbor put back up, right this time, heard a jackhammer going at the neighbor's, was hoping they could come here when done and blast out four concrete footings so we can start over. No such luck. Of course I would have paid a reasonable amount. It was a fence company and I saw they had augurs of different sizes in the truck. That would be so nice, that arbor was a dream come true, and it's all come to nothing for now, my son and the neighbor down the street think vandals knocked it over but it wasn't installed right, I knew it, and was frantically trying to find out how I could anchor it better, didn't make it in time, actually paid another guy to try to screw it in the footings using a masonry drill. That failed, too.

My son is good at things but so busy.

It is thundering and raining again . . .so far just a shower. The beds that aren't mulched yet dried out already after that record downpour, probably damp deeper down. I will mulch but want all my seedlings in and big enough so I can see where to put it all without ruining some plus I want to hoe first. I can neaten up the edges later.

Susan...I enjoy hand watering and I also feel that I can give each plant a lot of water directly and some weed and grooming attention at the same time. Ideally it is great, but time, energy and 'hot days' seem to be the issues for me. I do that when I can, but I can't depend on it. Interesting idea to fill a trash can and dip the watering can into it.

Newbie...sounds like you are having the same issues.

Triciae....we mulch here but I doubt I have 4" out there. I don't have access to leaves but I do ask neighbors for their bagged leaves in the fall. I wouldn't have enough for much of anything. We put down 6yds last year and could do the same this year. Hoping things will grow in more and won't have to have that much. If you have to buy it, it's expensive. I like your theory on transplanting and adding plants in the fall. Makes sense. I seem to do both but I will have to try to do more in the fall.

Thanks for the drip irrigation suggestion nckvilledudes. I will look into that.

Mad Gallica, that baby pool idea was pretty creative. :-)

Lorraine....we rarely water our lawn too. One summer we had no rain for two months and it was looking so awful we did put the sprinkler on it a couple of times to keep it going. Most of the time, I leave it to fend for itself. Keeps the mowing to a minimum too.

echanceamaniac...I guess I could do that with 2 litre bottles too.

aliska and Heather....sorry to hear about all the flooding. A happy medium would be nice. I guess it must be this global warming that is creating either too little or too much of one thing or another.

athenainwi...thanks for the DripWorks site...looks really helpful. I like the degree of customer support they offer.

Icyveins....I would like to use rainbarrels, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Thank you all for all the great ideas!

I think you got a lot of nice advice here. I would probably use a combination of it all:

collect water in rain barrels
mulch heavily - it really works and amends the soil at the same time

plus - and I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet - use water polymers. It is a product that people mainly use in containers but it works just as well for plants in your beds. Mix the granules with water according to the instructions on the container (mine takes two tbsp granules for a full bucket of water) and wait for a good 3-4 hours until the granules have soaked up the maximum amount of water (it will look like chunks of ice). Then mix a handful of chunks with soil at the bottom of the planting hole, plant your plant and voila!

I know that this method doesn't do much for an already established garden, but if you do this every time you plant a new plant or when dividing existing ones, you'll make a real difference. I use it mostly for water-loving plants in my mostly dry shade area and the plants have never looked back. They are thriving. I also find it very useful for establishing small plants.

The way the water polymers work is that the roots take moisture from them when needed and everytime it rains or whenever you water, they get replenished. Make sure that you get at least 94% polymers. They last the longest.

Marianne

ON rain barrels, you can find food grade barrels at food manufacturing places. Like Pepsi bottling. Sounds like the garbage cans would work too. As for aesthetics, Paint them!! Paint them to match your house, paint flowers on them, decorate them up with stars, moons, faces whatever, I don't have any yet, but when I get mine done, that's what I plan to do!

Jenny P

Jenny, my boyfriend asked if I mentioned that he painted his... then he sulked when I said I didn't. Mine is green, and has grass like plants painted on. Soon the painted grass will be covered by the real grass we planted! In fact, most of them that I've seen in use have been painted... as were the ones they were selling at our Garden Fair last week. I guess I'm lucky in that I have a compost whacko/artist living with me :)

Oh and we get our barrels at Rural King. Most farm supply stores sell them. Only around $10 bucks too!

I've been following this thread with interest. I have about an acre of land, and it is quite shady. Most of my sunny areas are around the edges of the property, so that's where I have to drag hoses for several gardens. I'm still trying to figure out the perfect set-up.

I have three rain barrels, but none are connected to downspouts (yet). One problem is I need the water so much farther away from the house that I would be lugging buckets of water all over. I have two rain barrels out by my vegetable garden/raised bed area. Despite several big rains, there is not as much water collected as I had hoped.

The third barrel is outside my back door. This one I use primarily to store grey water from the showers and kitchen sink. This water gets used on pretty much a daily basis since I have lots of pots on the patio in back, and it is very hot and sunny there.

I'm hoping to hook up another barrel to a downspout off the garage... but first I have to have a gutter and a downspout put up, since there is none on the garage.

I tried soaker hoses in my raised beds last year, and this year put three of them in my large cutting garden. The problem is, my well does not have much pressure, and the bed is quite far from the house. I'm pretty worried about running the soaker for too long because of the well.

So, I pretty much drag 150 feet of hose around. What a pain in the neck. They kink, they get caught on anything and everything (I swear they get caught on blades of grass, lol), I have to lift them OVER beds so they don't run through them - oy vey. There's got to be a better way.

I'm toying with drip emitters, but I wonder if this would be similar to soakers, pressure-wise and well-wise, etc. Anybody on a well use them who could give their experience?

I'm happy today because I came home to 20 bags of cocoa hull mulch in my driveway. I made a deal with someone that if they would bring me the mulch (and some more cinderblocks for my raised beds) they could have some wood from a tree I cut down. Saved me several trips to the nursery, got rid of the wood that would not fit in my log splitter, and now I can mulch some of these gardens... once I get them weeded, lol.

Great thread! Thanks, PM2!

:)
Dee

Marianne...thanks for adding the polymers suggestion to the thread for someone who may want to try it. I personally am an organic gardener that likes to stick with organic solutions and polymers just don't fit my idea of what that is, I guess. I could use them in my containers, but so far, I have avoided them even in that application.

Jenny, icyveins...yes, painting the rain barrels sounds like a great idea. I am a bit 'maintenance phobic' [g], and Painting it would be lovely, scraping it and having to paint it again in three years, I would not enjoy. I put stain on our gate in the hopes that it would at least just fade and not need to be scraped and sure enough two years later, it is peeling and needing to be scraped and repainted. *sigh*

Just something to think about. :-)

Now if I had a 'compost wacko/artist' living with me, well...I would consider myself lucky too. Any chance you could be moving to Massachusetts? :-)

Dee...sounds like we are in the same boat to some degree. All my gardens are around the edge of the property for the most part. Dragging the same 150ft of hose. We have a black rubber hose from Sears, which seems to be indestructible. Oops! Shouldn't have said that and jinxed myself. [g] We have had the same hoses for years. They are heavy and supple and don't kink much at all, but they still require maneuvering quite a bit. We use a LOT of hose guides. I use the plain old green plastic that really don't even show up much to keep the hose out of where I don't want it and to help keep it in the right position. They are inexpensive at Sears. One problem with them is that the black rubber will leave marks on anything it rubs against. I have ruined more clay pots that way, that is one reason why I have put in so many guides. Now I seem to have a pretty good routine going with them and haven't marked up a container in quite awhile.

Rainbarrels that are not connected to a downspout and don't have the surface of the roof to collect the water, seem like they are barely going to get inches of rain that falls in any one storm, unless we really get hit with 8" of rain from a major storm and then you still only have 8 inches...lol.

We also have a garage without a gutter that I am considering adding a gutter and downspout to a rainbarrel, but so far, it seems like it is at the bottom of my priority list. I imagine rainbarrels around the downspouts, would need connections to hoses to get the water to where you need it and hopefully it would be a bit downhill? It would be so great if we would just get a rain storm once a week with two inches of rain and save us all this trouble!!

:-)
pm2

Addition of water absorbing polymers is generally not recommended for in ground use because they break down much faster due to microbial action in the soil. In pots, they are not as affected as much, but they should be good for helping to get plants established in the ground for a few years before they become ineffective.

nope, not moving to massachusetts... toying with the idea of retiring to Mississippi (longer gardening season), but that's not for another 20-30 years.

You can probably find your own artist/compost whacko. Look for a guy in a funky t-shirt who looks vaguely homeless and has dirt, paint, and possibly clay on him, then take a good look at the dirt. If it's good dirt, take him home. Warning, there is a downside: artist/compost whackos ALWAYS look homeless, even in a tuxedo.

Above there are perhaps a dozen mentions of soaker hoses.

I too have had good luck with soaker hoses in borders. I leave them in somewhat of a loop-the-loop configuration rather than stretching them out entirely straight. They are connected to the faucet with a cheap battery operated timer from WalMart so they can be programmed to come on twice a day for several minutes.