Create Your Own Waterwise Garden
Careful planning and good gardening habits can make a significant difference in reducing your garden's needs.
A drought tolerant, hardy garden is essential for our sometimes harsh weather conditions.
Plan Carefully
- Select the right plants
Hardy, drought-tolerant plants are low maintenance and can withstand harsh drought conditions.
- Group similar plants
Group plants according to their water needs, creating watering zones.
- Consider natural water capture
Where will water go during high rainfall?
- Understand your backyard
Where and when is shade created? Where is there exposure to wind? This will help you select and position plants to ensure greatest water efficiency.
Select the Right Plants
Choosing the right plants will save you precious water and cut maintenance requirements. Speak to your local nursery for expert advice on how to create your own waterwise garden.
What to look out for:
- Water efficient plants tend to have small leaves and be lighter coloured (light green, grey green or blue green foliage).
- Hairy leaves surrounding plant's pores acting as wind breakers and reducing moisture loss.
- Deep root systems that search for water.
- Protected pores - plants lose water through small pore-like openings in their leaves. Water efficient plants tend to have fewer pores to minimise water loss with most of them located on the underside, protected form the sun and wind.
- A strong internal structure that prevents wilting ensures plants survive prolonged periods of heat stress.
Change Your Maintenance Habits
By changing your gardening habits you can make a significant difference in the water needs of your garden while continuing to meet the ‘Target 140 litres/day/person' as part of the current water restrictions. A waterwise garden, full of drought-tolerant hardy plants will generally require less maintenance.
- Water less often
By spreading out your watering you help your plants establish deeper roots to better cope with drought conditions. Water infrequently and deeply for best results.
- Water at night
Watering when the sun is down limits water loss through evaporation.
- Be innovative
Fill an old plastic water bottle with a pin sized hole in the lid and place at your plants root system upside down. This will ensure a slow and deep watering and your plants will love you for it!
- Use water crystals and soil wetting agents
These make the most of your watering and help prevent water loss through evaporation.
- Mulch, mulch, mulch!
This is one of the quickest, easiest and most cost-effective ways to save water in your garden. It reduces water loss through evaporation, suppresses weed growth, reduces wind and water erosion by allowing water to penetrate the soil, encourages better root growth by insulating soil from temperature fluctuations, and improves the well being of your soil.
- Fertilise modestly
This may increase your plant's moisture requirements.
- Control weeds
They are water thieves.
- Prune your shrubs
Pruning after spring reduces the leafy area and reduces a shrub's water needs.
Download the Is your garden as water smart as you? publication for more information.
Severe Drought Maintenance
In a severe drought where outdoor watering is severely restricted or even eliminated, you must prioritise your landscape and select the plants that will receive water and those that won't. Divide your landscape into three.
Waterwise Gardening Publications
Download the waterwise gardening publications relevant to your needs (such as 'How to Waterwise Your Garden', 'How to Zone Your Plants' and 'How to Make the Most of Greywater') for more information.
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