Proven Ways to Save Water in Your Garden

If you are looking for ways to save water in your garden, whether during hot or dry weather seasons, we have got you covered. Maybe you have just decided to do this on your own, maybe you aren’t doing so well financially, or there are probably restrictions within your area that are forcing you to. Whichever the case, you are doing the right thing.

In this post, we look at five proven ways to save water in your garden or lawn. But first:

Water Saving Facts

In order to appreciate how important your decision to save water is, consider the facts.

First, Americans need at least 100 million gallons of fresh and clean water to drink. In total—bathing, drinking, farming… you name it, an average American uses at least 150 gallons of water per day. But if every household wastes a drop of water every second, that would be almost a billion gallons of water lost within a single day.

Secondly, you need at least a billion gallons of water to farm enough food to sustain your family for a year. As for the garden and lawn care, you will need at least half of all the water you use at home. These factors combined means that you cannot afford to waste water. It is too precious, and forms the core of our very livelihood.

5 Proven Ways to Save Water in Your Garden

1. Know the right time and amount to water.

If you know the type of soil in your garden and the amount of water it needs, then you will never over-water it again. Heavy soils, for example, do not need as much water as light or sandy soils for the plants to be healthy.

Also, you don’t need a watering timetable for your plants. And if you must have one, then it ought to be flexible enough to let you only water when the plants need water, and not just because the watering time is clocked. For example, your timetable could be telling you to water the plants at five in the evening, but then you find that the soil is still damp. Don’t water them in such a case. Or what you could do is install a lawn irrigation system, which you can control at any needed interval and thus maintain a controlled amount of water that is being used for watering the lawn.

Lastly, avoid watering your plants in the bright sun of the day. Do it in the evening so that the water doesn’t evaporate, allowing the plants to enjoy the moist soil all night long.

2. Try drought-resistant plants.

If the plants in your garden don’t need too much water to survive, then you will save big in your water usage. This will actually be a very good thing to do if you live in drought-prone areas. Some of the plants that you can try include Verbena, Oleander, Aloe, and Yucca.

3. Harvest rainwater.

This would be your best way of conserving water and cutting down your water bills. And it is insanely simple to pull off, really. Just have all the water from your drainpipe collect into a reservoir and then use that water in your garden. The reservoir can be as simple a container as a water bucket.

Harvesting water also means that the threat of rain water from the roof destroying your garden is minimized. You will not need to plant new grass after every rainy day.

4. Try mulching.

Mulching is the surest way of preventing evaporation from taking place in your garden. That means that the soil is able to retain more water and remain moisturized throughout the day, as opposed to when you leave it exposed to the sun. This is also a very cheap option for you, particularly considering that you can use fallen leaves from trees as your mulch. Stones or wood chips are also good mulching options to try.

5. Regular weeding

Sometimes, your garden needs too much water because the plants are competing with the weeds for the water. Conducting regular weeding eliminates this competition and ensures that the plants remain cooler for a long period of time. You can pull out the weed if you are afraid that other weeding methods will damage your lawn. But if your budget allows, it is always a good thing to call in an expert to handle this on your behalf.