When Heronswood’s latest water bill arrived we couldn’t believe our eyes – we had cut our usage by 50% and still maintained a lush green garden!
This is the story of how we did it:

1) We stopped watering our lawn
Victoria’s water restrictions began in late 2003, our lawn dried out, but it cut our water bill dramatically. At Heronswood our magnificent shade tree (Desert Ash), cooled us down on those 40°C days. We learned to enjoy the straw coloured tones of grass as if we were looking at a Van Gogh painting. Our Kikuyu lawn greened up again in April without gaps and none of our visitors complained.
2) We only planted one drip (drought tolerant) plants
This cut the water use by 80% on those 3 drip water hogs like Rhododendrons, Silver Birch and Gardenias. Our garden is a display of Digger’s plants that we have researched and selected over 15 years, so you now have 300 drought-tolerant plants to choose from.
3) Our organic soils hold water well
We have a light sandy soil, which is easy to work, but it dries out too quickly. However, we have been adding our own composts and manures for the last 21 years and those organic particles help grab water before it passes through!
4) Never expose your soil to the sun!
We always cover our soil with either plant foliage or mulch. Exposed soil dries our garden beds, and high temperatures kill plants. Mulching reduces soil temperatures and evaporation and of course prevents weeds getting started.
5) Set sprinklers for minimal wastage.
In Victoria we are allowed to water our garden beds at night which minimizes daytime evaporation. We cleaned our pulsating sprinkler heads, checked our computer timings and then sprinkler angles, to make sure our sprinklers didn’t double up or miss any parts of the garden. We could cut our bill by a further 20% if we switch from overhead watering to drip irrigation.
6) Further savings we can make.
Like every other garden we still have parts that need extra water such as four vegetable gardens. So you can have a lush green garden without planting dry arid type plants.
It's as easy as not watering your lawn.