As pleasant days fade away to be replaced by heat and humidity, it is time to take a serious look at your garden, especially in regard to water usage and its conservation.

The questions gardeners need to consider include: Is a lawn really necessary and does it ever get used? Can thirsty plant species be replaced with hardier, drought tolerant ones without spoiling the overall effect of the garden lay out? Are there any varieties of vegetables which don’t need regular watering? How is it possible to cultivate anything when little water is available? What is the most efficient way to water gardens, lawns and plant pots? How to reduce the need for watering?

The first of these important questions will, no doubt, cause a few of you to raise your eyebrows at the thought of a garden minus an area of ‘lush green lawn’ yet, without doubt, the financial, physical and irrigation costs of maintaining water guzzling lawns are astronomical and, let’s face it, very few lawns are actually used as intended. Lawns, certainly in this part of the world, are an indulgence which should, as the amount of potable water available diminishes, be completely outlawed and replaced by orchards of fruit trees under which herbs, vegetables and an artfully attractive scattering of flowers are grown with, if liked, seating arrangements here and there in the shade provided by the productive trees. Transforming a useless lawn in to a highly productive fruit, vegetable, herb and flower garden does take time and effort but the rewards, including a drastic reduction in water usage, are more than ample.

Eliminating thirsty plants from your garden is a simple task: These are predominantly species which have been introduced from either cooler or wetter climates than our own and include popular species such as petunias, pansies, lobelia, dahlias and the orchids from the Far East which have become so popular over the recent past. Drought tolerant ornamental plants are either indigenous species or which, flowering cacti are an example, have been imported from drier parts of the world although as not all such species are tolerant of seasonal monsoons, it is necessary to use caution when selecting prime specimens for your garden. Redesigning your garden using drought tolerant plants is far from being a boring or colourless task – on the contrary – it can be a highly pleasurable experience. It also has the long term bonus of rarely, if ever once established, needing to be watered which saves on time, manpower, cost of watering equipment and the increasingly precious water itself.

Vegetable production does consume water on a regular basis but not as much water as people tend to think and, frankly speaking, more plants are killed by overwatering than by anything else. A general guide is that soft vegetable plants such as lettuce do, in hot weather need watering, not drowning, daily as do cucumbers and tomatoes whose sappy stems and fruit need lots of water to perform but bindi, lauki and karela are content to be watered every 2–3 days depending on temperature and humidity.

Cutting water usage to an absolute minimum in the garden is, once the lawn/s have been deleted, quite a simple matter: Forget expensive drip irrigation systems which come with problems attached and opt for either traditional mutka irrigation or plastic bottle irrigation systems. With the first, unglazed mutkas are buried up to their rims in the ground, the distance between each one depending on soil type and what is to be grown. They are then filled with water, using recycled water from the shower/bath, clothes washing and dish washing is fine as long as it is free from grease and from all harmful chemical contaminants, which is topped when and as necessary. The first 2–3 times the mutkas are filled they will, especially in sandy soil drain rapidly but the rate will reduce to nothing more than a slow seepage after a few days.

The plastic bottle irrigation system is equally simple and straightforward: Simply take an empty plastic bottle of one liter or more, make a small hole in the lid and turn it upside down. Make a sizeable hole in the base, stick the upside down bottle firmly in to the soil close to the base, avoid damaging root systems, of the plant or in the middle of a group of plants, fill it with water and leave it be until it needs filling up again. The plastic bottle irrigation system is also ideal for pot grown plants both indoors and out but, if used indoors then cover the open base of the bottle with very fine netting to prevent mosquitoes breeding in the water.

Any unavoidable watering should be done as close to sunset as possible so that the plants have all the hours of darkness to drink their fill before the sun returns and evaporates it. Watering in a morning is a waste of time and water.

Cutting right back on water usage in the garden is essential and both mutkas and plastic bottle irrigation systems greatly assist with this: Other ways of saving water are to plant drought tolerant species, avoid plants which are indigenous to wetter/cooler climates, eliminate lawns or replace them with either fruit trees etc or with a cemented seating area, do not flood everything within reach of the hosepipe and do not water everything on each and every day. You can also, I strongly advise it, mulch around every single plant in your garden, large and small, as a way of retaining soil moisture whilst also feeding the soil and all it supports.

Now let’s take a quick look at other jobs in the garden for this month:

Some of you enthusiastic gardeners might still have a scattering of spring flowering annuals brightening up your flower beds and pots and, if this happens to be the case, check over the best of them for ripe seed to harvest, unless you have made the mistake of growing hybrids that is, and put in to air tight storage until the next sowing season comes around.

Providing you have done as you should have, you will have plenty of vegetable and flower seedlings ready for planting out in the garden proper. It is preferable to undertake transplanting towards sunset so that the seedlings have at least a few hours to recover from the shock of being disturbed before the sun comes up. If you are behind schedule though then get down to it and sow some bhindi, spinach, cabbage, chillies, tomatoes, radish, aubergines and capsicums along with coriander and lettuce in the shade.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. Answers to selected questions will appear shortly in a future issue of the magazine. The writer will not respond directly by e-mail. E-mails with attachments will not be opened. The writer’s garden is not open to the public.