Gardening in hot weather
We take a look at an ingenious water-saving idea as a hosepipe bans looms. Plus: a dodgy rose, a blackbird update, and an unexpected Provençal interlude
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It’s been another hot one, especially where I’ve found myself stranded this week - more on that later. In the meantime we’re going to be taking a look at how to keep the garden going during the heat and an ingenious water-saving idea. I also need to have a conversation with you about a dodgy rose, and a there’s a blackbird update - I’ve learned A LOT about blackbirds over the last week. And there’s a Provençal interlude to round everything up - a place that is definitely going to be added to this list of our recommended gardens and green places to visit all over the world.
In a week of light rain after the heatwave, it was only a matter of time before the email from the water supply arrived, and sure enough, on the first day of July, this arrived:
Trying not to be distracted by that comma after Think which I’m sure should be a colon - thoughts on that welcome - I sighed at my pots, looked at my hosepipe wistfully as we parted company for the foreseeable. Watering cans only.
But what about the plants?
I don’t water anything in the beds, but if you need to, bear this in mind:
Plants are fine to be watered with grey water (water from baths and sinks) because soil and compost is a natural filter for soap suds.
You can also use water from dehumidifiers and tumble dryers
Try if you can to collect cold water whilst you’re running the tap waiting for it to heat up.
In the long, hot summer of 1976, my great friend Sarah Lester and I were dressed up by our mums in their idea of what hippies would wear: in tie-dyed t-shirts, patch-adorned dungarees and bandannas, we were then accessorised with a pair of standpipes and a couple of untwisted coat hangers as water-divining rods.
In fits of laughter at their own sheer genius - I clearly remember them falling about with laughter, much to my bemusement at the time - they then hung cardboard placards round our necks bearing the words ‘Two Drips Looking For Drops’ and entered us in the church summer fête fancy dress competition. We won first prize. Sadly there’s no photo, as they were too busy having hysterics.
That was the same summer of heatwave-induced droughts that my mother decided to recycle all the bathwater. My father, ever Italian in terms of enthusiasm and excitement coupled with little actual practical skill, proudly exhorted and encouraged his heavily-pregnant wife as she staggered up and down the stairs daily to the garden with buckets filled to the brim with all the water that she’d managed to scoop out of the bath.
She reminded me of this when she saw this video - for this absolute stroke of genius I have to thank our friend Julia who first allowed me to share this video made by her son Gabriel. If you’ve been part of this community from the beginning, you might remember the Zoom meet-up we had when Julia described her son’s efforts to recycle his sister’s bathwater that stopped us all in our tracks. Seeing how everyone was totally intrigued, I commented that this really needed to be seen to be believed - and so it was that the following day, this enterprising teenager who’s also clearly a budding film-maker, provided us with this video.
The best, really.
How to make a drought-tolerant, rain-tolerant, heat-tolerant and cold-tolerant garden
It isn’t the right time to be planting anything at the moment, but if you’re totally fed up and thinking gravel is the way forward, I promise you it’s easy. Here’s my own little patch of gravel, before and after: