Hardy Tropicals UK

It seems amazing to me that we have some parts of the country in flood other parts in drought, and this happens regularly, yet they have local water authorities trying to deal with the local water levels. Surely there should be a national strategy moving water from where they have too much, to where they have too little. We rely on rivers like a third world country, seems everyone else in first world countries uses pipelines

My lawn has turned lovely lush green and I have not watered it, and not had much rain either

Might be dew in the night Dave? I've found that dew can be a life saver for plants, in a 'drought'.

Dave Brown wrote:It seems amazing to me that we have some parts of the country in flood other parts in drought, and this happens regularly, yet they have local water authorities trying to deal with the local water levels. Surely there should be a national strategy moving water from where they have too much, to where they have too little. We rely on rivers like a third world country, seems everyone else in first world countries uses pipelines

My lawn has turned lovely lush green and I have not watered it, and not had much rain either

It's not just water that is managed inappropriately.

If you ever get the time you should google "peak oil". It's quite frightening would could happen over the next couple of decades.

I have to water down here still due to lack of rain, we've had a few dewy mornings but they still need a good drink, I've put lots of chicken poo pellets around my Bamboo's to try and keep them moist and to help them grow big cains next spring hopfully.

Same here!

Watering many plants daily.Very little rain for weeks now.Its probably only rained on 3 or 4 days this month but only 1 day with anything significant.The rest has been 'specks'!!

The ground is bone dry and the sun is peeking through now!!

My bougainvillea's are putting out plenty of new flowers though!!!

Paul .

Nice day in the North West today Palm king but I did water plants this morning given it started quite mild and sun was forecast too !

We haven't had much rain this month and I've rationed water from the water butts across the month successfully but will run out next weekend but rain is forecast

Dave in Warrington wrote:Nice day in the North West today Palm king but I did water plants this morning given it started quite mild and sun was forecast too !

We haven't had much rain this month and I've rationed water from the water butts across the month successfully but will run out next weekend but rain is forecast

You're having the problem we get here most of the time. If it doesn't rain there is nothing to collect, and if it rains enough you don't need it.

We've had no rain here for at least a month, so I have been watering a different part of the garden each day. Luckily we aren't on a water meter!. But my elderly neighbour is, so she borrows our hose to water her plants and fill her pond. The soil here is quite thin and soon dries out.

Its now 20 consectutive days here without a drop of rain, and with no real dew in the nights, the ground is breaking up quite markedly. Still it's not too bad, I don't think there's reason to be concerned here, as our water table is relatively high being by the coast so no such problems. Like Paul, my bougainvillea is enjoying this dry spell and putting many bracts/flowers out. As is the Bird of Paradise which also prefers this dry weather. It may flower next year if it survives another winter

Here it's been uncharactaristically dry. There has been no rain at all in September and maybe one or two in August. The last real downpour we had here was in July. I tend to spot water the things that really need it, but yesterday the hosepipe was on all day on different parts of the garden. No doubt it will come soon enough, and then, knowing my luck, will have a frost overnight

Di

I know it must have been dry here because today i had to top my small pond up, gone down a good 3-4 inches
Ive also been having to do odd spot of watering, didnt think i would be so close to october.

I water my bamboo's every other day and one of my hardy Bizzy Lizzy's was well wilted so I water that and let it have a good soak as it's planted deep, to deep for just drizzle to do any good, but we've not even had that for what seems like weeks now, like whats been said before it's all or nothing it seems

Nick wrote: like whats been said before it's all or nothing it seems

I suppose the drought like conditions are a change for some of you, but here we've had periods like this even during the wet summers of 2007/8. Rainfall September to date is 15.2mm and most of that fell on just 2 days. It's these high pressures that anchor themselves and don't budge. You are either under them and get fine and dry for weeks on end, or if you are not the low pressures are channeled over you reapeatedly giving deluge after deluge.

To be honest I like the high pressure to the southeast over France at this time of year so we get fine weather but with SW winds which keep it mild. Then a switch to low pressure streaming across from December to March keeping it mild

Here the riverlevels are at a record low. But rain will come as the high pressure zone will be replaced by lowpressure influence. We had allready some rain here yesterday.

Alexander

It is October now but still very dry and mild here, so although too late for feeding the garden, I think that watering will be needed until the garden starts to shut down for winter.

i

Nick wrote:I water my bamboo's every other day...

As Nick says, Bamboos really do need lots of water. 'Boos grown in large pots, (as they often are, in small gardens) should be watered right through the winter, during mild spells.