Thanks Paradisi.........Not much help is it and I know my plants will not be getting a bucket of water each every week, gosh I have so many, thankfully a lot of them are three to four years old now and can kind of fend for themselves a little better.....Cheers..MM.

g'day paradisi,

for me i can't understand why we should expect the authority to solve our gardening problems. water is getting to be a scarce if not a very expensive commodity and from what i see and read behind the picture portrayed by the administration on tv it is going to get a whole lot worse and there is no qick fix, may never be a fix at all?

the way i see it if we want gardens then we have to do gardens that need little or no water (basically survive on rain water alone), to get the best result then you will need to have some understanding of your micro climate as that will play a major part in what you can successfully grow in a near waterless garden. eg.,. if you have a western aspect then your micro climate will be far more extreme than someone with a northern aspect.

some steps to get real serious about are:

1.. install at least 1, 3,000 gallon tank 5,000 gallons is even better and 2 will be even more so. you don't have to pay to have pumps or gutter pipes fitted that is DIY stuff so very easy, just have the tanks delivered and sited where you want it/them.

2.. i've said this before and i guess i'll keep saying it because it works! your gardens will have to be very heavily mulched with spoilt hay type mulches and as the mulch breaks down redo it, on vege gardens keep it around 10"s thick around trees and shrubs around 20"s

3.. in hind site you may find your cottage type annual gardens are going to be very resource wasteful (just like lawns) or high in use at least so minimise them and keep those plants in one spot of your landscape. we all love ferns and stag's and tropicals of any sort but they are becomming impracticle as they often consume large amounts of water.

4.. get real about capturing and using all your waste water, the system doesn't need to be expensive, yes it may take some effort on the gardeners behalf but it is going to get valuable water to your plants, mostly for your vegetables as it is very difficult to make vege gardens that waterless as most veges need good moisture levels to produce.

guess a lot of bad habits from affluent times are going to have to be changed, but good habits can become part and parcel just as much as bad habits are.

there are businesse around that will supply recycled water and water your gardens for you so if you realy want to continue with your gardening style maybe that is a way for you, that way you alone pay for the excesses not others in the community.

from all media i have seen from the administrators they are clearly saying grow indemic native plants in your landscape, they are not promoting anything else.

all i have written above i have already done so i know it works and i will continue to do so even back here in the burb's, water restrictions aren't concerning me in the least.

maybe it's bit the bullet time?? maybe go from pretty to practical??

if you need some help or advice or some analising of your situation or some lateral...

I think the most important things when watering, however much water you can spare, are
1. make sure the water gets to the plant roots, and odesn't run off the hard dry surface. You can do this by forking the surface of the soil to aid absorption, digging a bowl, or putting up a little dam wall around the plant so the water sits there, or putting in a piece of pipe and sticking an upturned bottle of water to pour the water down the pipe.
2. Make sure the water stays there once it is put there. Water saving granules, and humus in the soil will assist. Mulch will help prevent evaporation. Watering in the cool of the day will also ensure the water stays there longer.
Lon - do you mean 10cm of mulch on the vegies, and 20cm elsewhere? I think 20 inches of mulch would be rather excessive. Might as well buy up a few semi-trailer loads of hay and just put the bales out side by side :-(
I'm interested to see that you suggest spoiled hay, because that is the way I like to go. I actually leave my bales out in the rain to rot, often buying them in 6 months ahead of time. I often see people complain here about the bales being mouldy, but I really think these are the best sort, and if you can possibly buy them that way they should be a whole lot cheaper.

g'day sparaxis,

talking macho here i mean inches believe me when done properly and maintained it works, ok a big cost initially to get the project up and finished but there after all it needs is adding too. we lived in what is by most standards a dry area with medium low annual rain fall last year around 880mm and our trees and shrubs once established needed no water from us and produced juicy plentiful fruit from those food trees. even if you are going to use chipped tree mulch around your trees and shrubs it needs to be 6 to 8"s deep and for the main that will need topping up at leat once every 12 months.

and in the cold states like vic', sa and tas' the heavier mulch layer will keep the roots not only cool in those heat wave periods you have but it will do the reverse in winter and keep the root zones warm.

yes when planting leave a well around the plant even if you need to plant the root ball higher up due to bad soil drainage ie.,. heavy clay's. for those heavy clay's apply liberal amounts of gypsum under the much that will keep the ground pliable or less water shy.

consider if you do the mulching as you build your gardens or do the plantings then it doesn't all need to be done at once, and maybe causing a drain on the household budget, but yes if you buy your mulch in loads other than individual bales it generally comes cheaper.

i'm not suggesting something that hasn't already worked well for me in all locales.

len

Thanks for the posts/discussion folks, very informative - keep it pouring!

Here is a link that might be useful: rain water tanks brisbane