Watering

[doghouseriley]

Here in the North-West, there were never any restrictions on watering during the dry spell. No threat of a hosepipe ban.
The problem with water, there's no infrastructure to move it in volume from one area to another in this country.
The houses in our road are built on what was farmland until the mid-sixties. It's free draining and has some sand content, being on the former flood plain of the river Mersey. It can rain as hard as it likes, we never get pools on either the lawn or in the borders, not even water in the little drainage channel between the lawn and the beds. We've a lot of shallow rooted plants like azaleas and rhodos, some fine leaved acers and a sambucas that are liable to get scorched leaves in hot sun, plus five wisterias that are very thirsty and a couple of dozen roses in ceramic pots on patios that dry out quickly in hot weather. The tall acer tree in the front garden needs it too.
So throughout the hot spell, I made sure everything got plenty of water, even the lawn. I know, "yellow" lawns will recover, but I find them unattractive. So the two lawn sprinklers were on for a few minutes every day, likewise the borders leaky hose system now and again., but mostly I used the hose to keep the the soil and the foliage damp and the fine leaved plants got a mist spray at lunch time if I was home. The patio pots got an evening water every day.

We didn't lose any plants.

Well, the accounting for this care and attention, has just arrived in the form of the twice yearly water bill. I'll be paying an extra pound a week for the next six months. That amount of money wouldn't replace one plant of a reasonable size if any had died for lack of water..

My next door neighbour lost a large tree and a few plants by not watering sufficiently.