Summer has arrived!

Hot balmy days beside the pool, picnics on the beach…….ah, sounds wonderful! But while we’re all enjoying the warmer weather our gardens are looking a little frazzled. Queensland’s summers are often very dry so here are some hints to help you maintain your garden and lawn during the summer months without wasting one of our most valuable resources - water.

The Lawn

• Deep soak your lawn. While giving the lawn a quick drink every night may be good therapy, it makes the grass shallow-rooted and dependent on a meagre amount of water every day. Most water from light watering is lost through evaporation. Water for longer periods to soak deep into the soil.
• Aerate the soil to allow water to be absorbed more easily.
• Use a timer with your sprinkler – a forgotten sprinkler wastes more than 1000 litres an hour.
• For new home builders, check at your local nursery for a suitable drought-tolerant lawn grass.

The Garden

• Use good mulch. Mulch can prevent up to 73% evaporation loss and therefore is a cheap, easy and effective technique to make the most of water. Mulch prevents excessive run off, restricts week growth, improves soil structure and helps put valuable nutrients back into the soil.
• Toughen up your plants. Only water when the soil dries out.
• Remove weeds. Weeds compete for water and nutrients.
• Install a drip system. Drip watering sometimes call drip irrigation or micro irrigation, used permanently laid plastic pipes with dripper outlets to deliver the right amount of water to each plant, where it is needed, at a rate the soil can readily absorb.
• Dig a small trench around trees. This will give the water a chance to soak in and reduces water lost due to run off.
• Water your pot plants by dunking them in a bucket of water. Wait a few seconds, when the bubbles disappear, do the next pot. This saves water and ensures pot plants get a thorough drink.
• Water during the cooler parts of the day.
• Water the roots not the leaves. Plant drought resistant native trees and plants.

Did you know that leaving the tap running when brushing your teeth uses around 5 litres of water? If there is four people in your family that’s 40 litres of water a day! If we all turn off the tap while we brush our teeth, Queenslanders will save enough water every time to fill 10 Olympic swimming pools.

I didn’t know that

Do you know what the first water pipes were made from in the US?

Fire charred bored logs

Do you know why ocean water is salty?

Rainwater doesn’t contain any salt, but when it falls on the ground, salt from the soil dissolves in the water as it flows back down to the ocean. When this water evaporates from the ocean, the salt stays behind. This has been going on for more than a billion years. That is why the ocean is now very salty.

View Current Water Restrictions

If you have any queries regarding the above water restrictions, please contact David Wiskar
on 4197 4111.