More Water Restrictions For Melbourne

Readers of my blog at “Kathie’s Garden” will know that Melbourne (and Australia in general) has been suffering from a drought for a few years now. I’m only allowed to water my garden on Tuesday and Saturday mornings by hose between 6am and 8am. Kind of kills sleeping in on Saturdays, doesn’t it? My garden is important to me. I love seeing the greenness and the flowers, and exploring each new bud and the growth of the plants.

During the rest of the week we capture shower water in buckets and empty them into a large watering container so I can water the garden often. We’ve also had installed a pipe leading from the roof of the house to our fish pond so that when it does rain, the water ends up in the pond, instead of spilling from the gutters and pipes to the ground.

A report in The Age this morning holds little hope for us in the next couple of years with respect to the water restrictions being lifted. The MD from Yarra Valley Water is saying we need rainfall of biblical proportions in order for the restrictions to be lifted. What I don’t get is that they tell us to do the watering in the morning from 6am to 8am. In hot weather the garden dries out incredibly quickly. To me it would make sense to do the watering between 6pm and 8pm (while it is still light) so that the ground remains damp overnight. But I guess they have their reasons for not doing this.