By MARIA HITCHCOCK
NEW England is currently in the grip of a major drought and as well as farmers being severely affected, people with gardens are also suffering losses.
Gardeners spend a small fortune buying plants, fertilisers, sprays, paying for water, etc. They also spend many valuable leisure hours tending their gardens and if this were to be calculated into a monetary figure the results would be mind-boggling.
It can truly be said then that a garden is an investment. Many homes are sold because of the way the garden enhances the property. Think of all the weddings that take place in country gardens.
So what can we do to minimise the damage that a drought can do?
People in town with access to town water might have an advantage but they do need to pay for that water. People on properties would have seen their dams and shallow bores drying up over the past month.
Many are buying expensive water for their homes and recycling as much as possible for the garden. I remember the 1981 drought when we bucketed the bath water and washing machine water and limited our usage to the bare minimum.
It was a time of high interest rates on mortgages and we could barely afford the tanker of water being delivered every few weeks.
1. Using water efficiently is the key to times of drought. Firstly residents need to forget about watering annuals, perennials, roses and lawns. Just save the bigger expensive plants that will take years to replace. The trick is to water deeply and encourage roots to go right down deeply into the ground. Do this by limiting the watering period to about once a week but then pouring it on. Each shrub or tree should get the equivalent of about two to three buckets of water at a time.
2. Preventing evaporation is the next step to using water efficiently. With the current high temperatures, surface soils tend to dry out very quickly. Cover them with a deep barrier of mulch. There are so many mulches to choose from these days, ranging from small stones and rocks to woodchip. The important thing is to make sure it is a thick layer and that it allows the rain to penetrate when we do get the odd fall. The council sells mulch, made from recycled garden clippings at a very reasonable cost. Or buy chippings from the electricity prunings through a local supplier, or go for something more expensive.
3. Don’t prune shrubs until the drought breaks. Pruning stimulates new growth which uses water and nutrients in the soil and these are needed to keep plants alive as long as possible. Once the drought breaks the plants will make up for lost time. By all means cut off any unsightly dead branches but do keep general pruning to a minimum.
4. Water crystals hold many times their weight in water. They are like bits of jelly that swell up and hold water for long periods. Make a few deep holes with a crowbar around the shrub or tree but about 30cm away from the base and fill them with soaked crystals as a small reserve. The holes should be under the mulch layer. The crystals release water slowly and will be replenished the next time you water.
5 Pray for Rain. Enough said.
Maria Hitchcock is a local native garden expert. She is author of Correas and A Celebration of Wattle. Maria is the current Leader of the Waratah and Flannel Flower Study Group in Australia and owner of Cool Natives Nursery.
