Tools & Maintenance

Hoses & Sprinklers

• Check all irrigation systems regularly for leaks.
  • If certain portions of your lawn seem overgrown or especially green, you may have a leak.
  • Replace cracked hoses, and clear grit away from spray nozzles that dribble water.
  • To prevent future damage, store hoses away from human or pet traffic. Attractive, compact hose containers are now available to protect your hoses from damag
• Remember that fine sprays are not fine for conservation.
  • Fine sprays and mists easily evaporate, making them very inefficient.
  • Set your sprinklers or hoses to deliver water in large droplets, which are more resistant to evaporation.
  • Manually water small gardens, plants and shrubs; a watering can still works wonders.

Automatic vs. Manual Sprinkler Timers

• Automatic sprinkler timers must be managed properly to avoid waste.
  • Manual timers are often a better choice because they must be reset after each irrigation. Plus, they are often much cheaper than automatic timers.
  • You can make automatic timers more efficient by resetting them regularly as rainfall changes.

Buy a Rain Gauge

• One of the best irrigation tools is also one of the simplest: it's well worth a few dollars to invest in a quality rain gauge.
  • Use the gauge to measure the amount of rain collected per week, and subtract this amount from the 2.5 cm you would have applied to the lawn with sprinklers.

Drip Irrigation

• Install a few lines of drip irrigation to water your gardens.
  • Drip irrigation uses narrow tubing to water plant roots directly. It's very efficient at watering everything but your lawn, which would require too many drip lines.

Harvesting Rainfall

• Install a "rain catchment device" such as a rain barrel or holding tank.
  • Such devices usually collect rainwater from downspouts connected to roof gutters.
  • A 93 square metre roof can collect 590 L of water during a 6 mm rainfall. That's a huge amount of free water that you can use for your lawn or garden!
  • Visit http://www.cityfarmer.org/rainbarrel72.html for more information.

• Position your downspouts carefully.
  Any downspouts not feeding into rain catchment devices should be positioned so that rainwater is directed towards your lawn rather than your driveway. However, ensure that the spouts are placed far enough from your roofline to prevent seepage into your foundation.

Water Features

• Pay close attention to the condition and usage of your water features. Water features such as decorative ponds, fountains and waterfalls look great in the yard, but they do consume extra water. Still, you can cut down on their water use by making just a few adjustments:

1. Regularly check for cracks and other damage in all pipes, pumps, and connections. These can cause your water features to leak, and such leaks can add up quickly on your utility bill.
2. Operate your lawn decorations for a limited number of hours per day, or better yet, only when your yard is actually in use. Use a simple timer to cut back on extraneous use.
3. Go with the flow-a reduced flow, that is. Use lower pumping rates, smaller pumps, and pressure-reducing valves to reduce water flow while maintaining the look of your water feature. The higher the water flow, the more water wasted due to evaporation.
4. Whenever it's rainy, windy, or very hot outside, shut off your water features to avoid excessive evaporation and drift.
5. Use a cover to prevent evaporation from your pool or hot tub. The less water you need to replace, the more you conserve-and covers also keep debris out and heat in.
6. No splashing! Adjust the direction, pressure, flower rate, and water level to prevent splashing (which wastes water) and spraying water too high into the air (which speeds up evaporation).

Tips provided by Hole's. For more in-depth information on water in the garden, see Jim Hole's articles at http://www.enjoygardening.com/.