Yes isn't it terrible, it bad enough that we can only water on three days I mean nights a week with a hand held hose, but it is so dark here then there is the mozzies, the mildew and fungus no good for roses, thats not to bad for me as I am a morning person so I will be out there as soon as it gets light, but I feel so sorry for the people who have to work and have to do it after they come home in the dark.

I have about 20 cms or more of Sugar Cane Mulch on top of all my roses beds now but still have to water them every third day as they dry out so fast here especially with the strong wind we have been having of late.

I was thinking of buying some water crystals but the amount that would have to go into the beds would be too many $$$$ so I will give that a miss, maybe just for the potted roses. I did add wetta soil granuals when I made the new rose bed in April but I think all we can do now is mulch, mulch and more mulch, and if they dry out too much well its the bucket brigade.

Of course the Pollies seen it coming years ago, they just put it into the too hard basket, like everything else. But its here to stay so lets just hope it rains a lot and very soon before it gets too hot...Cheers..MM.

Hi Hunty,

Two things,
First: I found a thick layer of mulch is a MUST- I use sugarcane mulch which I buy for $4.50 a bale.

2nd: Remember in Brisbane we have a lot of afternoon thunderstorms in Summer so that should tide us over as well as the 3 times a week restrictions. Some people in top rose gardens in Queensland do not water their roses in Spring-Summer, they only get watered in the rain. I haven't watered my roses in the past 2 months, they have only been getting the rain and not a yellow leaf in sight so I think they do toughen up.

Cheers,

Brissy

Up here in FNQ I have a trickle system to my roses and they get a deep watering once a week/fortnight when I remember. They are doing ok. Remember that frequent small waterings encourage roots to stay too close to the surface, spaced out deep waterings will help them seek the moisture further down in the soil.
Of course they are all well mulched also.
Cheers
Judy

We have had water restrictions for a while now and last summer they were tough. This resulted in a lot of Victorians biting the bullet and installing rain water tanks. They are expensive but there are Government rebates and this will probably be the way of the future.

I have rain water tanks at both my places of residence and even use that very carefully.I save my grey water and that is all the lawn gets.
I have lots of mulch and run drip line under most of the rest of the garden .The sad part about water restrictions is that for every one person ,like you, who is worried about doing the right thing there are plenty out there who won't and it does make it hard.We don't get sugar cane mulch down here in adelaide I use straw or old wheat bales and anything else I can lay my hands on.

I can water only twice a week and, although I don't live in the hottest part of the country, the soil here is sandy. Also, I garden on a slope, so it is extremely well drained. Over the past few years, I've had to devise ways to help my plants survive.
Everything, (including natives), is double mulched. This means a 5cm layer of lucerne topped with a 5cm layer of native mulch in my native garden, and hortbark on the exotics.
The reason I cover the lucerne is to prevent it from drying out. I've found damp lucerne will keep the soil moist for up to 2 weeks. It does however break down quickly and needs to be replaced every 6 months. Underneath the lucerne, and only on the roses, is a 10cm or so layer of cow manure applied once a year at prunning time.
I've added a wetting agent to the soil over my whole garden, and, am a great believer in the benefits of seasol every couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, all of the above adds up to quite a lot of money. But I'd rather have fewer happy plants than spend money on a lot of plants that struggle because I can't afford to care for them. You do learn over years of gardening just what your priorities are, and, what you need to do in your area, to keep your garden going.
I should point out that my older roses (5 years), and established natives, can now get by on very little water.

When it comes to water restrictions, I feel sorry for young mothers. How can they be outside hand watering when children need to be got ready for school in the morning, and homework supervised in the afternoon. I don't blame some people for giving up on their gardens, it must be very, very hard.

I live in an area where I see animals that are hungry because there is not enough grass - and my animals are irritable as they get lucerne twice a day and it is boring for them as they would rather eat grass - so I feel very much for the water restrictions. In our little valley they are also talking about raising the level of our dam to supply more water to Sydney which makes us all very hot in the collar as that will destroy so many peoples' farms (with no compensation) and thousands of trees - I may end up with a water view but with some badly affected neighbours and friends.

I have been working flat out installing countless leaky hoses (bought at Woolies supermarket) on all my rose gardens and then drilling a hole with my cordless drill so that there is a little trickle at each rose - and have worked out that it is possible to connect up 3 leaky hoses using tap connectors and bits of old hose and with the drilled holes, there is enough pressure to get the flow to the end. The owners of the country property I bought over 2 years ago had installed a Biocycle, a tertiary treatment system which processes everything that goes down any plumbing (taps as well as loos) and turns it into clear water and my leaky hoses are connected up to that system over three very large garden beds as the piping for this runs underground. I have had ialso connected to the town water system so that I can plug in a hose and water three large roses beds at once when needed. The biocycle is a brilliant system as the water is safe to use on gardens in this manner (although I have to pay to have it inspected every 12 weeks), it has some nutrient in it and is magic for sad roses and it is a permanent system and never needs pumping out or other. Not a septic system and I think a way of the future but you do need a certain lawn or garden area to disperse the output of it. But also these three beds are over half an acre in front of the house and when it rains they get inundated as the house is on a good slope and the large roof has no guttering by design - so lots of water at certain times and then the biocyle for the rest of the time. I hope that it will work this summer as last summer all I did was hand water roses and I lost so many. It is very very hot here in summer - hotter than Sydney's west. I tell everyone who comes here - every bath you have waters the roses.

I also have developed this year a new rose bed that is ?? 30 x 10 m but curved but the biocycle does not water this - I had connections put in to a dam that I have that is permanently empty (must get around to fixing the holes in the dam liner) so when this ever gets some water in it, maybe it can water this new garden.

I also have spent far too much on mulch - lucerne whenever I can get rain damaged lucerne for $6 a bale - and am struggling to get it on all the beds.

Maybe we will have some rain this summer - I sure hope so for everyone's sake!