Waterworks

I have accidentally turned my garden into a shady woodland grove, which has been awesome, particularly in the summer. I’ve been able to spend long, hot summer days working on our lawn without even bothering with suncream (and not getting burnt), and the patch of green that we have agreed to call a meadow stays pretty green.

However, last year was a drought. While our meadow stayed green compared to all of the other open grass around us, it certainly stopped growing. I put new plants in, and almost lost them for not watering enough. I almost ran out of water in my mighty water butts, because a blackbird had tried to make a nest on the diverter on the 350l one and dislodged the pipe and the downpipe was half-blocked with rubbish from the roof anyway. The plant in the top of the water butt nearly died a couple of times because I forgot to water it.

I felt like I could do better. And over the winter, I’ve tried.

I’ve been concentrating on the 350l water butt, which collects water from one half of the garage roof.

That half, there. I think it’s between 7 and 8 square meters, so for every mm of rain we get in theory we get 7-8 litres off that roof. It won’t be exactly that, but close enough.

The first thing I’ve changed is how to get the water from the roof into the water butt. Rather than use the diverter from the downpipe, I’ve changed it so that the downpipe now empties directly into the planter at the top. There’s a hole in the bottom of the planter and the water should drain through the soil and into the water butt underneath. It took a bit of trial and error and staring at diagrams for SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems), because water doesn’t drain through soil quickly enough, the hole at the base kept blocking, and the whole planter kept over-flowing. My eventual solution is a chunk of 50mm pipe with holes drilled into it, which sits over the hole and sticks up slightly proud of the soil. Then when it starts to flood, it goes straight down the pipe and no longer overflows. I’ve added a piece of roof tile that I found to cover (but not block) the top of the pipe.

I haven’t got a good picture, because the Canterbury Bells in the planter has grown so big and bushy with all the extra water it’s received this winter! This solution solves the blockages (the leaves just hit the top of the planter and blow away or mulch down), and waters the planter properly.

I reused the old inlet hole, which now only acts as an overflow. The pipe from there now runs through and behind the bushes, and into a smaller, black, 100l water butt. This currently sticks out like a sore thumb, but later in the year once the leaves come out on the cherry tree I think it will blend in a bit more in the shade.

This is in a slightly awkward spot, but that’s ok. It’s attached to a set of soaker hose, which when I turn on the tap slowly drip the water out into three prongs of the bed. That should help to water the beds without me having to keep carrying watering cans around. Of course, the black one will only fill up after the blue one, so there’s a very good chance it will run dry, but it’s hopefully 100l of water that wouldn’t have been distributed otherwise. I’m still deciding whether to bury the hose, which would look better but is harder work!

This overflows into my new container pond, via the rest of the 50mm pipe.

This filled entirely from rain in about 3 days. We don’t really get serious downpours, so this was 3 days of steady drizzle. Lovely.

This is a work in progress. I know nothing about keeping ponds. I’ve been reading ‘How to Create a Wildlife Pond‘ by Kate Bradbury. I bought a pack of British native plants for a small pond, and then panicked because I didn’t have the levels for them in the pond. I initially tied them all onto a couple of sticks to hold them at roughly the right levels, and now I’ve got them tied onto a piece of netting! It’s a work in progress, but they do seem to be growing. I might have overdone the ‘pond revive’ to try to kickstart the bacteria that I’m hoping will keep the algae at bay.

Any excess water after filling all of that will drip over onto the bed beneath, and hopefully spread out from there. I’m working on the planting that will cope with that! Again, work in progress. As is the black pipe, which is ugly. I’d really like to replace that with a sort of elevated rill made with something like bamboo – even though it’s only going to have water flowing down it when it’s raining, that will at least look prettier the rest of the time.

Apparently Oxford gets around 733mm of rain per year, so that’s between 5100 and 5800l per year off that roof. Almost all going back into my garden, one way or another. Let’s hope it isn’t another drought year, but if it is, I’m slightly more prepared! And any hints or tips on the pond would be most welcome.