I overheard my idiot neighbour the other day when someone was talking to him about a possible hosepipe ban; "I'll use as much water as I want, I'm the one paying for it". Makes my blood boil, not that I'd have the courage to say anything 😒
I think for a lot of people watering is routine rather than any need for it. In the east we have had it drier than most of the country and I'm amazed at how some plants are doing. Our established plants have clung in there without any water all summer, they might not have had any real growth and fewer flowers but they still hang on. I've mulched the whole garden with a thick layer of bark and the newly established plants seem to take far longer to look thirsty than without it.
I didn't hear it but my family told me of a local-ish woman who had had a burst water main outside her house for three weeks and the water company hadn't bothered to fix it yet (despite it being reported straight away and several times since) and then yesterday apparently anglia water said no hosepipe ban was planned because they have plenty of water.
I've got 3x250l and 1x100l waterbutts already but they are bone dry so I'm planning another two and thinking where more could go but they are amazingly expensive for something that everyone should have. Why does doing the right things always cost so much?
That is just plain stupid @Dovefromabove . It's like the council coming round and saying that nobody can put rainwater butts with diverter kits around their house / shed etc etc.
If anybody, on any scale, is prepared to invest the time and money collecting rainwater on their property in such a way that it doesn't interfere with anybody else - how on earth can that be anything but a good thing????
I guess the more rainwater collected on the surface the less there is going in to water courses and aquifers - but - really? - the scale of what you're talking about wouldn't even touch the sides would it?
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
Don't give them ideas @Topbird ... in some states in the US it's illegal to have waterbutts to 'trap' rainwater because the rainwater 'belongs to the water company' ... honestly!!!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Ah, Googling reveals that there have been recent changes ... I've just looked at this one so don't know about others ... when I spoke about it above I was remembering conversations with some friends from the US who were amazed that we had water butts on our downpipes ... https://www.lyonsgaddis.com/blog/water-butts
But it's still illegal to rinse your hair in rainwater in Colorado ... apparently 🌧
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
There were a couple of quite extreme states, but I think they have since changed and the laws were practically unexforcable, and mostly concerned with famers trying to prevent water running off their land. When one farmer owns thousands of acres, river abstraction is a huge problem. California is in the grip of these battles.
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I've mulched the whole garden with a thick layer of bark and the newly established plants seem to take far longer to look thirsty than without it.
I didn't hear it but my family told me of a local-ish woman who had had a burst water main outside her house for three weeks and the water company hadn't bothered to fix it yet (despite it being reported straight away and several times since) and then yesterday apparently anglia water said no hosepipe ban was planned because they have plenty of water.
I've got 3x250l and 1x100l waterbutts already but they are bone dry so I'm planning another two and thinking where more could go but they are amazingly expensive for something that everyone should have. Why does doing the right things always cost so much?
If anybody, on any scale, is prepared to invest the time and money collecting rainwater on their property in such a way that it doesn't interfere with anybody else - how on earth can that be anything but a good thing????
I guess the more rainwater collected on the surface the less there is going in to water courses and aquifers - but - really? - the scale of what you're talking about wouldn't even touch the sides would it?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
But it's still illegal to rinse your hair in rainwater in Colorado ... apparently 🌧
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.