It's 28૦C in the garden today and I am looking forward to some rather serious watering when the sun goes down. My intention to semi-wild the garden and grow more perennial vegetables and plants was partly to do with having to do less watering during the summer and plenty of my plants manage well with no watering at all even in periods of drought.
These are among the plants that never get watered: the shrubs making up the boundaries of the garden such as privet, pyracantha, viburnum, mallow, yew, buddleja and a hydrangea which used to be very thirsty when young but which copes fine on its own now that it has matured. There is a useful shrub with silver leaves which used to be called Senecio greyi (meaning 'old man') but is now officially and rather sadly called Brachyglottis - but it least it never needs watering. Many herbs such as lavender, various sages, marjoram and fennel like a good drought and geraniums, roses, sedums, chrysanthemums (the small-flowered ones), pinks and asters never get watered by me.
But some plants do need watering and I have worked out a sort of system which I follow most days. It's pretty simple, my system. I do have a water butt and that's great to use when we've had enough rain but doesn't last forever and, of course, won't fill up in dry weather. I have tried seep hoses in the past but it's too easy to plunge a fork into them by mistake. I've tried hoses with reels, but reeling them up again each time is tedious. I have to confess my present, shorter hose just snakes around on the patio when not in use.
For watering purposes, the garden is divided into two: at the far end there is shade from a lime tree, an elder and a holly from next door. Here I've planted two sorts of kale, a row of Maris Piper potatoes a few beetroot and some raspberries which don't need watering as often as the patio vegetables because they are partly shaded and the ground water doesn't seem to dry out so quickly. (There's also a comfrey plant, an angelica and some perennial climbing spinach which never need watering.) Near the house is the patio with lots of pots and containers and some flower beds where I grow garlic, beetroot and kale among the flowers. So now it's between a hand-held hose from the tap which reaches the patio and a bit of the garden, and several watering cans hand-lugged up to the further reaches of the garden. (Why don't I get a longer hose? Well, I am self-isolating and can't get anybody in at present to attach it and fix the leaky bits.)
On the patio end of the garden I have concentrated on salad vegetables and like everybody else I'm growing more than usual this year. In many of the pots - the ones with tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines specially, I have buried a plastic water bottle with the end cut off, nose down, to get water and nutrients right down to the roots. The compost above then acts as a kind of mulch and I tell myself it won't dry out so quickly. These pots need watering every day and sometimes twice a day in this sort of weather.
Of course, there are one or two plants that do need special attention watering-wise: the deep red Astilbe Fanal gets very miserable when dry, my one Dahlia - one of the Bishops, I can't remember which, but a beautiful deep pink with dark foliage, likes its drink and, to my surprise, the cardoon, which really looks like a plant that can withstand drought needs watering too. I have several cordon fruit trees and they like a good soak from time to time.
When I've finished with the hand-held hose, I fill up all the watering cans so when I come to water next day, they are all ready to go. Psychologically, it makes the work easier. I also fill up an enamel jug on the seed-growing table so I can water at the drop of a hat on a hot day. As time goes on, the watering cans seem to get heavier and heavier so I have bought one or two smaller ones, less heavy and I only half fill the others. It means more journeys up and down the path but it's much less back breaking.
When things get really dry, I may take the water from the washing up or vegetable preparation into the garden and tip it onto the plants. I use very little washing up liquid so it's quite harmless.
The most recent advice from the RHS is to water in the morning but I don't get up early enough - it's too hot by the time I appear so I do it in the evening around 6 ish when the sun is the other side of the house. But, of course, if there's a poor little lettuce wilting in a small pot, I will water it whatever the time of day.
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