A probable drought in 2012

[elemire]

Roses are tough plants, especially those that stood a test of time. I mean, it is not the first drought that some of the varieties have to survive, roses like for example centifolia or alba are around for at least 500 years. In a way it helps to cull all the too tender and fussy ones.

[Paul Narramore]

With 433 gallons of stored rainwater, am I bothered? There really is no excuse for not making every effort to store rainwater and to mulch the borders. My aching back tells me yesterday's efforts adding mulch to the borders will pay dividends, and I've still half of the garden to complete. The reduced lawns can take care of themselves.

We have a large pond with one solitary fish - although I've not seen him this year. If the worst comes to the worst, we shall begin to drain the pond.

I remember the year of the big drought, was that 1978, and we started for the first time to share bathwater (Mrs N and I) then syphon out of the upstairs bathroom into the garden. Storing bathwater in water butts however is not nice as it soon 'goes off' and smells a bit.

Of course all this concern probably means weeks of heavy rain is just around the corner.

[Lulu-amongst-the-blooms]

Originally Posted by Flordel

Yes, they do, maybe the roses will be least affected.
However I am very afraid of drought, even if we haven't had any water restrictions so far and even if I'm kind of independent and have my own well and pump for watering the garden (I've figured out it's cheaper even if it's more incovenient) I'm still dreadful.
That is because we've had years in which we've looked up to the sky and wished for rain while we baked in the heat. No matter how much you water, you can't achieve the same results as a good rain. And worse drought is misleading, it can rain, but if it isn't enough, the deeper layers of soil will be still dry and quickly dry out afterwards.
However I didn't think that it would be a problem in England which is surrounded by water and I had the misconceived idea that it gets a lot a rain.

We are quite wasteful of water in uk. We are being considered kind of odd for installing a grey water recyling system here. Right where i am is on the edge of the South west, a wet region, but i am in a big plain of a valley surrounded by very much higher land, looks like hills for me down here, but most are higher plains....if not ideologically then geographically!

often the rain heading this way gets dropped on those hills.

[Flordel]

I guess everywhere people as a general rule are wasteful of water.
Only a few collect rainwater or recycle it.
I remember my grandmother used to have all kind of containers for the rainwater and when it rained very heavily during the summer we used to run like crazy to change them if they got filled, it was a great thing for me as child to get soaking wet.
I don't collect it anymore, but I figured out that when it rains it goes in the garden and it will find its own way down to the underground body of water from which I pump it up again.
I have no idea if the cost for you Lulu or Paul or Bart for drilling your own well is high or not. I have a narrow well which has been manually drilled by 3 people, they came with some kind of machinery but this was not electric and it didn't take long, maybe 4 hours. Afterwards I just lowered in it a pump with a hose and when I want to water I just plug in the pump. It is much cheaper than paying the water if I got it from the water company. The only inconvenience is that I have to water by hand or let the hose run in one spot and then move it. I can't attach a sprinkler because I would damage the pump by limiting the flow of water.

[elemire]

hehe ah the conveniences of the civilization. We had something similar back in Lith what Flordel mentions - we had a melioration (drainage) well, something like 5 meters deep, so if we wanted to water, we dropped a pump into it. We had 2 barrels, but we did not store rain water in them - they were for well water to warm up before watering the greenhouse. In fact, we did not even have a central water in my old garden, since it was a summer house in the middle of the woods, so drinking water we used to get in big plastic bottles, from a few drinking wells around.

Before we had a pump, we used to have a turning wheel to get the water out of the well, it kind of seems natural when you are used to it. That is still common in the deep villages in the East Europe, something like this:

[Flordel]

You mean the water level was 5m bellow? That's high, we had to dig 20m...
Yes, I know this type of well, quite common in the countryside, actually we have one too at our vacation house also with a pump!
I'm posting a photo from this winter with my "famous" well (which is quite narrow like a shaft), I hope you can make out which one it is, it's in the middle between the 2 honeysuckle plants and it has the hose coming out of it!

[Paul Narramore]

Flordel

I know nothing about wells other than those old fashioned types with small tiled roofs to protect them. As far as I know the walls of the well had to bricked to stop the sidewalls dropping into the bottom, and this surely is expensive?

I think the first thing to go will be the washing of cars. Mrs N will be disappointed!

I have worked out where to place another water butt, our fourth. You can never have too many of a good thing.

[Lulu-amongst-the-blooms]

I would LOVE a well, and guess there must have been one once here to sefice the farm.....but no idea where.

[elemire]

Originally Posted by Paul Narramore

As far as I know the walls of the well had to bricked to stop the sidewalls dropping into the bottom, and this surely is expensive?

Not necessarily, we used concrete rings normally nowadays. It is a bit of digging and occasionally you need to clean the bottom, but otherwise it is free water.

We used to collect rain water for house plants when I was little, but stopped at some point, because air pollution in the city just renders that effort useless. You do not want all the heavy metals in the water you use on the plants.

[black bart]

I would LOVE to have a well! But I think that drilling for it would be very expensive.
People are shockingly wasteful of water. Also I definitely get the impression that things in this respect were better before, that it was normal to harvest rain water, etc.People were perhaps more conscientious and realized how precious water is. It doesn't just magically spout out of your home faucet! bart