Mastering Water-Wise Gardening for a Dry Summer

The warm days beckon irresistibly, coaxing you outdoors. No matter how hard you try, you simply can't resist the gentle caress of the spring sun.

You peer across your yard through half-closed, dreamy eyes, sensing the resurgence of life after winter's dormancy. Deciduous trees unfurl fresh buds, infusing vibrant colors into the landscape, while flowers burst forth in an explosion of hues.

The transformative power of nature on our mindset is undeniable. Even without the backing of scientific research, it's difficult to imagine anyone who doesn't relish the simple joy of being outdoors, whether it's sinking toes into sandy shores or wading through the lush, rainforest undergrowth. I wholeheartedly believe that spending time in nature is essential for nurturing our well-being

As the warm days coax us outdoors and we revel in the beauty of nature, tending to a garden can become a little daunting, especially as we approach the warmer months. Uncertainty may creep in, particularly concerning how much water our gardens will require.

However, here's the good news: it is entirely possible to cultivate a stunning garden that also conserves water.

Creating a beautiful, water-wise garden involves three key components:

1. Selecting the Right Plants: Assuming you've already chosen the appropriate plants for your space, this step ensures that the plant selection aligns with your local climate and water availability.

2. Providing Proper Soil and Plant Care: To achieve a water-wise garden, it's essential to nurture your soil and plants optimally. This includes enriching the soil with organic matter, mulching to retain moisture, and practicing prudent pruning and maintenance to promote plant health and water efficiency.

3. Watering Wisely: The final piece of the puzzle is watering correctly. This involves understanding your plants' water needs, implementing efficient irrigation methods, and adhering to watering schedules that prevent overwatering while ensuring your garden thrives.

By addressing these three components, you can cultivate a stunning garden that conserves water and thrives in harmony with your local environment.

Nurturing Your Soil and Plants

Just as a garden is a dynamic, ever-evolving landscape, it requires a steady infusion of organic matter to thrive. Organic matter serves as the lifeblood of fertile, productive soil, playing multiple vital roles in supporting plant growth. It acts as a nutrient reservoir, fosters soil structure, enhances nutrient exchange, retains moisture, prevents compaction, reduces surface crusting, and promotes efficient water infiltration into the soil.

To infuse your garden with organic matter, consider incorporating:

• Organic Compost: Whether homemade or store-bought, organic compost is a reliable source of organic matter.

• Organic Mulches: Options like sugar cane, rainforest fines, and tea tree mulch not only conserve moisture but also break down over time, enriching the soil.

• Organic Fertilisers: Use these to provide additional nutrients as needed.

In our gardens, we value the addition of Searles Compost, a registered organic compost specifically designed to jumpstart new plant growth and rejuvenate existing garden beds. Additionally, we recommend remulching with high-quality organic materials, such as sugarcane or one-inch hoop bark, every 12 to 18 months. This not only reduces water loss through evaporation by up to 73% but also continuously reintroduces organic matter into your soil, bolstering its water-retention capacity.

Ensuring Soil Hydration and Plant Health

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, the soil in both pots and garden beds can become hydrophobic. In such cases, soil wetters become a crucial component of maintaining a water-wise garden. These products facilitate water penetration to the plant roots, enhancing the soil's ability to absorb moisture and nutrients. This, in turn, fosters healthier and stronger plant growth. Soil wetters should be applied to lawns, gardens, and potted plants. At Trevallan, we offer a variety of soil wetters to suit different gardening needs.

The Key to Plant Health

The next step in achieving a water-wise garden is ensuring the health of your plants. Unhealthy plants demand more attention and resources. Consider using a complete organic fertiliser, such as Organic Link, every three to six months. These fertilisers promote robust, deep root systems that help plants endure growth phases, heatwaves, and dry spells.

Additionally, a fortnightly application of liquid organic based fertilisers like Triple Boost, Potash and Silica will further fortify your plants, contributing to their strength and vitality. Liquid fertilisers are applied directly to the plant's foliage and offer benefits such as reduced wilting, resistance to windburn, and heightened resilience in poor soil conditions. Your plants become more robust and less susceptible to pest infestations.

Effective Watering for Healthy Soil and Plants

Once your soil is in good health, proper watering is the key to maintaining a thriving garden. The most efficient approach is to install a high-quality watering system (using drip and misters as well as moisture sensors) and consistently use it.

However, if you prefer hand watering, follow these steps: water your garden as usual, then return approximately 30 minutes later to check the depth of moisture penetration. It's essential to ensure that the soil is adequately wet down to a depth of at least 30cm. If not, you'll need to water again, ensuring proper saturation.

Regularly providing a thorough, deep soak for your plants promotes the development of deeper and stronger root systems, enhancing their resilience during dry periods.

Your garden can survive or thrive this season, it’s up to you!

My Favourite Gardening Task

Runs in the Family!

Warming the engine of the mower so my sister could mow on a cold morning!

My favourite gardening task is nurturing my lawn. I take immense pleasure in mowing it, finding it to be a job uniquely impervious to interference by others. Unlike cleaning a house that quickly gets dirty again, a mowed lawn can be seen for a least a few days and the sense of accomplishment I feel is indescribable. I love looking out or coming down the street and seeing my freshly cut lawn

To me, lawns form an indispensable facet of a garden's landscape, bearing numerous positive attributes that are nowadays often overlooked.

Recreational Space

Lawns offer a versatile space for outdoor activities - be it sports like soccer (our front lawn moonlights as a mini soccer field complete with its own built in goal), at home picnics or easy to clean up kids dinners, gatherings, or simple relaxation. A well-kept lawn invites people to be outside nature, whether it’s to engage in physical pursuits or just ‘chill’. You will often find my teenage son and his friends just chilling on our front lawn.

Aesthetic Appeal

Well-maintained lawns enhance the visual appeal of a property. They create a sense of order and cleanliness, contributing to the overall beauty of a landscape and increasing the curb appeal of homes and public spaces.

Stormwater Management

Lawns adeptly soak in and decelerate rainwater runoff, curtailing flooding and erosion risks. The lawn and soil function as nature's sponges, filtering and absorbing water before it reaches drains or water bodies.

Erosion Control

Lawns, when properly established with healthy root systems, can help prevent soil erosion. Their dense vegetation and root structure stabilise soil and reduce the risk of soil loss during heavy rains or wind.

Cooling Effect

Lawns can mitigate the urban heat island effect by reflecting sunlight and providing a cooler surface compared to paved/concrete/rock/fake turf areas. This helps maintain more comfortable temperatures in and around your home. I know how much cooler our front patio is since we created our turf area.

Mental and Emotional Well-being

A well-maintained lawn fosters mental tranquillity The sight of green and lush open areas lessens stress, instils calmness, and revitalises the mind. For me, it evokes strong emotions rooted in cherished memories of learning about gardening from my grandfather.

Air Quality Enhancement

Lawn grasses can ensnare airborne particles and pollutants, elevating the air quality within their vicinity. This leads to healthier, more breathable air. The difference is tangible; once our front yard evolved from a dirt patch, the home became less dusty and the air more invigorating.

I believe incorporating sustainable practices, like opting for organic fertilisers, water wise methods, and minimising pesticide usage, can amplify all these positives while mitigating the negative ecological and social impacts lawns seemed to have suffered over the last few years.

Chelsea Mowing at her old house

I firmly believe lawns don't necessitate extravagant expenses or environmental detriment for upkeep. They can be tended organically, and a well-rooted, robust lawn requires minimal watering. Maintained lawns are not onerous chores; they just demand consistent, manageable care.

While my lawns may not be in their prime currently, I employ simple, accessible organic techniques that anyone can adopt. Lawns, in their dynamic nature, thrive with regular but not excessive attention.

For me, a lawn is a key ingredient that adds that extra dose of joy to a household and completes the picture of a beautifully landscaped yard.

Water Saving Tips for Gardeners

Back in 2005, we were hit with water restrictions for the first time and these made gardeners feel like they were some sort of water criminal. Even today, it still feels like gardeners get the blame for wasting water and not conserving our environment.

Gardeners are not water criminals. Gardeners and Gardens are necessary as we need trees and gardens to help sustain a healthy urban environment.

Three positives generating a healthy urban environment are:

• Spending time in nature can make us mentally, emotionally and physically healthier.

  • “In 2021, nearly 1 in every 7 people (1.1 billion) around the world were living with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depressive disorders the most common.” It is believed the practice of shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term that means forest bathing, has the power to counter depression, anxiety and stress, as well as illnesses including cancer, strokes and gastric ulcers. It is also believed that over time it boosts the immune system, lowers blood pressure and aids sleep.

• Energy is conserved, saving YOU money.

  • Strategically placed trees planted around a home could cut your summer air conditioning costs by over 25%. By reducing the energy demand for cooling our houses, we reduce carbon dioxide and other pollution emissions from power plants.

• Neighbourhoods become safer.   

  • Barren neighbourhoods have shown to have a greater incidence of violence than their greener counterparts. Trees and healthy urban landscaping encourage people to spend more times outside socialising and also have a therapeutic effect, which overall reduces the level of fear people have for their neighbours.

If these reasons aren’t good enough (I have plenty more) for someone who accuses you of being a water criminal because you garden, just explain that you save water in the following ways:

• Soil Wetters. Sometimes soils become hydrophobic (can't soak up water so it just runs off the surface). These products contain surfactants that allow the water to penetrate the soil and enhances the soil’s ability to absorb moisture, enabling the soil to actually become wet and stay wet for longer. This leads to a happier, healthier plant. These products are a must for all gardens and lawns and need to be applied at least yearly, but preferably every six months.

  • We stock Searles Penetraide Re-Wetting Granules or Searles Recharge. Both these are granular soil wetters that contain fertiliser as well. All in one product.

  • Plant of Health's Eco Friendly Range of Soil Wetters are also fantastic. We use the Soil Wetter Granular, which is 100% biodegradable. This surfactant is infused into natural diatomaceous earth granules giving you the benefit of both a surfactant and a silica rich input, that helps retain water, hydrate the plant and helps reduce plant heat stress. We also use Soil Wetter Liquid. This also has 100% biodegradable surfactants that enable water to penetrate the soil while the natural organic humates condition the soil, feed microbes, help retain water and hydrate the plant.

• You try to use the lawn sprinkler as an outdoor shower, with friends of course!

• You use organic Mulch; like sugar cane, tea tree, or my personal favourite, one inch hoop bark. Mulching your garden can reduce the water lost through evaporation by up to 73%.

• You become a nude gardener … No need for clothes washing.

  • If you do wash you use the EUCA range of laundry detergents as it’s grey water and septic safe.

• You use Envy. Envy is a liquid that you spray over your plant’s foliage.  It helps protect against frost and reduces water loss through the leaves (transpiration) by 50%.

• You don’t drink water whilst gardening, you drink vodka.

• You use Silica and Potash Foliage Spray. This is a liquid that is sprayed over the plants foliage. It improves growth, flowering, fruit count, leaf presentation, colour and shelf life. It is also excellent for transplanting plants and can reduce wilting, frost damage, wind burn, heat and winter stress. Plants become physically stronger, especially in poor or salty soils, and more tolerant to pest attack.

• Fertilise. A healthy plant is a strong plant. Use a complete organic slow release fertilisers, like Organic Link. These  fertilisers  promote deep healthy roots that allow the plant to withstand growth phases, as well as heat and dry phases.

Enjoy your garden and never feel guilty about being outside, using water and playing in the dirt.