Smart Watering Hacks: How to Keep Your Garden Thriving During a Hosepipe Ban

Top last-minute tips for gardening during a hosepipe ban

1. Recycle pasta water

Cooking up a summer Italian dish? Forget draining your water down the sink. Let it cool and then use it to feed your plants. It’s rich in starch and a great natural fertiliser.

2. Unused nappies are super sponges

Unused nappies can be placed in the soil around plants - they retain water like crazy and release it slowly to the roots during any dry spells.

3. There is still time to use a waterbutt

With weather warnings for thunder and rain issued across the UK, there is still time to purchase a waterbutt and put it to good use as the hosepipe ban looms. Using a waterbutt to collect rainwater will mean you use less mains water to keep your plants hydrated when conditions do become dry. It's also worth recycling your bath water and watering your garden with it. It doesn’t matter if it looks a bit scuzzy, as the traces of skin cells and mild soap can actually act as a natural fertiliser, so long as you use it within 24 hours.

4. Sink a flowerpot next to your plants

By doing so, this will help the water you apply sink down to the roots instead of evaporating on the surface. Use a saucer on containers to make the most of any water that runs out of the bottom.

5. Water plants the evening

The plants will have time to absorb water through their roots instead of it evaporating first. Watering cans and buckets will be your biggest allies during a hosepipe ban

6. Mulch beds and containers to keep the roots cool

You can use many different materials from bark chips to coir, even old newspapers, straw or lawn mowings. Climbers like clematis or passionflowers will even thank you for a paving slab covering their roots.

7. Drench once or twice a week rather than regularly splash

Bigger plants and new shrubs/hedges prefer a really good drench once or twice a week rather than a splash every day - so save yourself daily time in the garden by doing longer soaks with a watering can just once or twice a week.

What are the best plants and hedges for hot and dry conditions

While many gardens may look parched and their plants struggle in these dry conditions (they may even start to ‘shut down’ and shed leaves to conserve water) - some plants just love it, it's in their DNA. Here is my list of heat-loving and drought-tolerant garden plants: (but remember all new shrubs will need watering well until they get well established, only when their root system has a strong foothold will they be truly drought-tolerant).

Beech hedges:

The native Beech likes well drained soil and is a great drought resistant hedge. Established beech hedges often grow strongly in a heatwave, far more so than in a cool wet summer that would be better for most other garden hedges.

Yew hedges:

Another native hedging plant that likes it dry, Taxus baccata or English Yew is the ‘King of Hedges.’ And like Beech, they can often be seen making extra growth in the hot weather.

Lavender:

A favourite cottage garden plant with its ancestry in the Mediterranean region, their silvery leaves are well designed to resist the heat, that’s why they thrive in the baked lavender fields of Provence.

Cordyline:

Often known by its common name of ‘Cabbage Palm’ they have striking architectural foliage and are available in a rainbow of different colours, they look great in a large container or to punctuate flower borders. A plant from hot southern hemisphere countries that grow really fast in hot weather.

Drought resistant Perennials and ground cover

Achillea:

The ‘Yarrow’ is a staple cottage garden plant and comes in a wide range of colours from brick red through terracotta, pink, lilac yellow and white. They are tough in every sense and that includes putting on a great show in the driest of summers, especially when paired with grasses and ‘Daisy’ type flowers in a prairie style planting.

Bergenia:

Better known as ‘Elephants Ears’ they make super ground cover. Great for sun or a bit of shade they will relish the hot summer temperatures with their oversized foliage making a great foil for colourful summer flowers.

Heuchera:

One of our most popular plants, these hardy perennials are virtually evergreen and come in a mind-boggling range of foliage colours. Ideal for gaps near the front of borders and a great container plant - looking great in all four seasons and they are virtually maintenance free. 

About Hopes Grove Nurseries

Established in 1992, Hopes Grove Nurseries are hedging plants specialists with a 137-acre nursery and over one million homegrown plants situated in the Weald of Kent. All the plants are given the best possible care by staff who have 200 years of growing experience between them. Hopes Grove Nurseries only sell hedging plants to the end-user (not to Garden Centres or other nurseries) so customers can be assured of direct from nursery pricing. The plants are delivered nationwide, coming directly from their growing beds to guarantee they are top quality.

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