I'd hate to have to save every pint of water from baths/showers/washing up etc to water a favourite plant to prevent it dying.
This is more applicable to those whose incomes are limited - and it's often those people who have a greater need to produce their own food.
But they are often those who live in small properties, with little or no garden space.
I save our water because I refuse to pay twice for water, when I don't have to. Maybe I'm mean, but I see it as being a careful steward of what we have - money and natural resources.
Where we live we rely on dug or drilled wells; there is no city/town/municipal water or sewer. Our well is very old and has started to show signs of diminished veins, and unfortunately, there is no re-drilling or fracking it to open it back up. New wells can cost up to and usually well over $10,000. We've become reliant on saving water however we can to water the gardens. GW has touched on this (very lightly) a few times, but it would be great to see how others have worked to save rainwater, especially knowing the droughts that have occurred in the last decade. For us, getting barrels out as soon as possible to collect the abundant spring rainwater is key. I'm looking into a few of those large plastic cubes (275 gallons) this year, and setting them up to collect the water from the barn roofs.
That being said, I've enjoyed every episode of GW, because we don't really have a program like it. There was The Victory Garden on PBS when I was young, but most "garden" shows in the US are more geared toward landscaping than plantings, and it's all about the before and after transformations rather than practical advice about the garden.
New England, USA
Metacomet soil with hints of Woodbridge and Pillsbury
I often use pots and containers to trial plants, to see whether they grow as I expect them to and whether they are worthy of a permanent position in the garden! It's also an easy way of injecting some seasonal interest into a tired border by standing the pot in a vacant place before or after other plants emerge. You can be careful with watering, using the @B3 technique (a winner!), making sure you use the right moisture retentive compost and grouping plants together or repositioning them in the shade if the weather is unusually hot. I admire the creativity and dedication of those gardeners who often appear in GW programmes with their large collections of plants in containers!
If we are admiring GW gardeners with pots in containers, can we PLEASE make an exception for that GP last year who had ridiculous lavender hanging in pots from the top of his shed? Thank you.
I see the point you are making @Simone_in_Wiltshire. You're not decrying everyone with potted plants...
I know what you mean about being careful with money and the available resources @rowlandscastle444, but we don't have a choice here with paying for water unless there's a private supply [stream/well etc] so you pay the same regardless of how much you use. I try to be more careful now, simply because of last year, even though there's no chance of a shortage here in the west, yet there are others who are watering grass which is nonsense. I gave my sister a few tips about having the bucket in the shower, as she's in the east, and they were being warned of possible shortages. I don't think it happened, but she likes her floral containers, so she found that useful. I'd like to be metered as it would save me money - without doubt, and that bloke up the road who waters his grass - even when it's raining [I kid you not] would maybe think twice about it. I do the same @Plantminded - spring bulbs and some annuals in summer are the great stand byes within the other, more structural, plants. I've always done the 'plastic pot inside the fancy one' thing so that I can swap seasonal plants around. Grouping them together is also a great thing, and you can use any old pot if it's hidden by nicer ones, or put a small one up on a couple of bricks and have it behind others etc. I have a small Pieris which is in a 6 inch pot, and it's up on a brick in behind a Carex, just to give some extra, different, green foliage.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I have said this a few posts ago but I have since looked a little deeper.
I think gardeners are carrying far too much angst about water usage. In the UK we have abundant water to meet our needs many times over. The water crisis is very limited and geographically constrained. A sensible government would regard water as a national asset and would invest money in an effective water transmission network that would balance out supply and demand. Denationalising the industry was complete folly - all that money given to shareholders that could have been spent on a water grid.
A while ago there was quite a movement to economise on paper usage to “save trees”. Did you ever hear anyone say economise on paper to save water? Of course you didn’t but making paper uses prodigious quantities of water. Fancy a new pair of jeans? Well the making of them used the equivalent of 78 (yes, 78!) water butts. A large bottle of cola? That’ll be five water butts, please.
When I was young we had a bath once a week. It is only in the past generation or two that daily, even twice daily, showers have become the norm. It doesn’t have to be so; dermatologists often recommend a three day interval. Try googling ‘how often should I wash my towels?’ Loads and loads of people say daily,
I am not on a water meter so there is no financial incentive for me to curtail my usage. There is moral pressure, however, and I try to be environmentally aware. However I do not take lectures from people who shower twice a day, wash towels daily, buy newspapers seven days a week, drink cola, wear new jeans, regularly wash the car(s) and do, eat or buy a thousand other things that use massively more water than my dozen flower pots in summer.
Edit: pro rata, Australia uses 80% more water than us, Canada twice as much, USA fivefold. It seems we’re not that profligate.
I bought a 300ltr IBC to collect rain water, in a hidden spot at the bottom of the garden, last year. It's now full but there's a fair bit of red algae developing in there. Could this algae be damaging to plants?
I've just seen Ronnie O'Sullivan at the garden center. I think he was eyeing up a plant.
I'm glad that the one or other saw that I did not ask to use no pots at all, but stressed that the ridiculous use of pots instead of the soil in the garden shouldn't be advertised as something adorable. Have a look on your own at the "water report", drought and hosepipe ban last year. Still interesting reading.
I wouldn't compare the daily use of water per household with countries that have far less density. Towns like L.A. have a hosepipe ban in place for years now (I'm told by relatives). Even this winter's heavy rain in California doesn't change the drought status, so the Los Angeles Times when readers asked if the official status can now be lifted. Europe has always used less water than those countries that BenCotto mentioned. Compared to European countries we are in the middle. But even Switzerland that uses double the amount of water per person statistically seen uses 80% for farming, whereas 40% is used for farming and 30% by households in the UK. That's why the target for the UK is to get us down to 120l per day down from 145l.
It was the extreme drought event and the increase in energy prices that made Monty Don thinking that the way how he was gardening until last year wasn't right. That his grasses died in the cold winter is just another aspect.
You can read a comment made by me in one of the last year's Gardeners World issues when I mentioned the environmental impact of storing what we harvest in a freezer. It needs all to be considered under a wider aspect. What food mile do we generate if we store our food into a freezer where we leave it for weeks and months. Is it environmentally better to transport fresh food across the country or even continents and eating it fresh than having it harvested in our gardens but we need power stations to keep the freezers working? We would have to change our habits and only eat what grows seasonally.
I'm fully aware that I'm the exception and if everybody would live
as I do we would have 95% less litter and in fact, the bin collectors
would have to visit us only once a year. On the other side, this would
turn into a lot of job losses.
Posts
But they are often those who live in small properties, with little or no garden space.
I save our water because I refuse to pay twice for water, when I don't have to. Maybe I'm mean, but I see it as being a careful steward of what we have - money and natural resources.
I see the point you are making @Simone_in_Wiltshire. You're not decrying everyone with potted plants...
I try to be more careful now, simply because of last year, even though there's no chance of a shortage here in the west, yet there are others who are watering grass which is nonsense. I gave my sister a few tips about having the bucket in the shower, as she's in the east, and they were being warned of possible shortages. I don't think it happened, but she likes her floral containers, so she found that useful.
I'd like to be metered as it would save me money - without doubt, and that bloke up the road who waters his grass - even when it's raining [I kid you not] would maybe think twice about it.
I do the same @Plantminded - spring bulbs and some annuals in summer are the great stand byes within the other, more structural, plants. I've always done the 'plastic pot inside the fancy one' thing so that I can swap seasonal plants around. Grouping them together is also a great thing, and you can use any old pot if it's hidden by nicer ones, or put a small one up on a couple of bricks and have it behind others etc. I have a small Pieris which is in a 6 inch pot, and it's up on a brick in behind a Carex, just to give some extra, different, green foliage.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I think gardeners are carrying far too much angst about water usage. In the UK we have abundant water to meet our needs many times over. The water crisis is very limited and geographically constrained. A sensible government would regard water as a national asset and would invest money in an effective water transmission network that would balance out supply and demand. Denationalising the industry was complete folly - all that money given to shareholders that could have been spent on a water grid.
A while ago there was quite a movement to economise on paper usage to “save trees”. Did you ever hear anyone say economise on paper to save water? Of course you didn’t but making paper uses prodigious quantities of water. Fancy a new pair of jeans? Well the making of them used the equivalent of 78 (yes, 78!) water butts. A large bottle of cola? That’ll be five water butts, please.
When I was young we had a bath once a week. It is only in the past generation or two that daily, even twice daily, showers have become the norm. It doesn’t have to be so; dermatologists often recommend a three day interval. Try googling ‘how often should I wash my towels?’ Loads and loads of people say daily,
I am not on a water meter so there is no financial incentive for me to curtail my usage. There is moral pressure, however, and I try to be environmentally aware. However I do not take lectures from people who shower twice a day, wash towels daily, buy newspapers seven days a week, drink cola, wear new jeans, regularly wash the car(s) and do, eat or buy a thousand other things that use massively more water than my dozen flower pots in summer.
Edit: pro rata, Australia uses 80% more water than us, Canada twice as much, USA fivefold. It seems we’re not that profligate.
It's now full but there's a fair bit of red algae developing in there. Could this algae be damaging to plants?
I wouldn't compare the daily use of water per household with countries that have far less density. Towns like L.A. have a hosepipe ban in place for years now (I'm told by relatives). Even this winter's heavy rain in California doesn't change the drought status, so the Los Angeles Times when readers asked if the official status can now be lifted.
Europe has always used less water than those countries that BenCotto mentioned. Compared to European countries we are in the middle. But even Switzerland that uses double the amount of water per person statistically seen uses 80% for farming, whereas 40% is used for farming and 30% by households in the UK. That's why the target for the UK is to get us down to 120l per day down from 145l.
It was the extreme drought event and the increase in energy prices that made Monty Don thinking that the way how he was gardening until last year wasn't right. That his grasses died in the cold winter is just another aspect.
You can read a comment made by me in one of the last year's Gardeners World issues when I mentioned the environmental impact of storing what we harvest in a freezer.
It needs all to be considered under a wider aspect. What food mile do we generate if we store our food into a freezer where we leave it for weeks and months. Is it environmentally better to transport fresh food across the country or even continents and eating it fresh than having it harvested in our gardens but we need power stations to keep the freezers working? We would have to change our habits and only eat what grows seasonally.
I'm fully aware that I'm the exception and if everybody would live as I do we would have 95% less litter and in fact, the bin collectors would have to visit us only once a year. On the other side, this would turn into a lot of job losses.
I ♥ my garden.