Building the Ultimate: WATER - WISE GARDEN

Saving water is an essential principle for every home and garden

- SUSANNA PARKER

The facts are these: 71% of the Earth's surface is covered with water, but 97% of it is saltwater, leaving only 3% fresh water. Out of the 3%, only 1% is available for consumption - the remaining 2% is in the form of ice found mainly at the poles. The 1% is also not distributed evenly over the Earth. We have an approximate annual rainfall of 492 mm while most places in the rest of the world have nearly double that at around 985 mm per annum. This classifies South Africa as a water-stressed country.

'Day Zero' may be used even more in the coming years than we would like, but it's an undeniable reality. As gardeners, this limits the style and number of water-guzzling plants that we should have in our gardens, and we need to be thinking of reducing our water consumption and saving as much as we can. Gardens can guzzle nearly 50% of the total water a household uses in hot and dry weather.

So, doom and gloom aside, let's look at the solutions.

Choose Plants Wisely

Designing a garden from scratch is the easiest way to get plants zoned into four areas, therefore making water go further. Zoning is not a new concept, it's simply a way to group plants according to their water requirements. In general, the fours zones are divided into High Water Use (only 10-30% of the garden should be this zone), Medium Water Use (20-40%), Low Water Use (30-60%) and No Water Use which should be the largest.