- Hello and a very warm welcome back to Huw's Nursery.
Now, in the UK we've been experiencing
some hot and dry weather
which has inspired me to create this video
to do with dealing with water shortages
and dealing with drought
and trying to lessen the impact of both of these.
So, I'm gonna be talking about three key strategies
and the first strategy is the watering strategy.
So, when it rains sometimes up to 60% of the water
can be lost due to evaporation
and that's a huge amount.
So, what you need to do is to not water during the day.
If you experiencing periods
of really warm weather,
then what I'd recommend you do
is to either water at dusk or at dawn,
so really early in the morning
or quite late in the evening,
so this will just reduce evaporation.
This is particularly key for if you live
in a place of water stress and water shortages,
so what you need to do is just ensure
that you only water in the morning and in the evening
so you can save as much as possible.
The second strategy is the protection strategy
and this is by protecting your soil
from losing water, kind of similar to watering
but I think these two strategies
goes hand in hand.
What you need to do, and I speak a lot
about this on this channel is mulch,
and the thing about mulch is that there are so many benefits
and positives to it
and what you wanna do if you are experiencing droughts
or periods of prolonged dry weather
you want to make sure that you protect
the surface of your soil.
So, if you use organic natural materials
such as grass clippings or hay
or straw then what you want to do
is create a two to three-inch layer,
so about five to seven centimetres thick
and this will be a really good insulation.
You can even use things such as old carpet,
you can use newspaper or cardboard.
There are many, many different things
that you can use
but all you want to do is just simply think about it
where you're protecting the soil
where it's not being exposed anymore to the air
and what this does is it retains moisture,
so it basically acts as insulation
but by retaining moisture within the soil.
And by doing that it means
that you don't have to water as often
and plants will be able to cope
for longer periods of time during drought.
The third strategy is a prevention strategy
and this is if you're noticing that droughts
are becoming more and more regular
or periods of long, dry weather,
maybe your rainfall is beginning to reduce over the years
and this is something where you really just all you need
to do is really simple
and I've given a couple of links
down in the video description,
is to look at plants which are best suited
for your environment
because there's no point growing something
which is really, really water thirsty
when you've barely got any water to give it.
So, a really good thing to do
is to grow plants that are native to your local area
and this is something quite interesting
in California where it's called xeriscaping
where people are encouraged to rip up their lawns
and plant local and native plants to that area
and these are a lot more suited
to the conditions
which means there's less irrigation
so there's more water in the waterboard.
And there's two other things
I quickly I want to go over.
The first one is shade.
Shade is really, really important
and especially if you live in a hotter climate.
I reckon every single garden
should have shade and what we have
is we have this corner here,
we've got some trees which are casting shade
and what this does is cool down the air
which means there's less evaporation then
and it basically acts as a natural cooler
where cool air will circulate around your garden
and that will reduce evaporation rates.
Now another thing that's quite interesting is weeds
and if you live an area which does have
a lot of hot weather,
then you wanna make sure that there least weeds as possible.
However, try not to weed during a drought
because what this does
is that will expose a lot of the soil
and then that will then mean
that even more moisture can escape.
So, if you really have to weed during a drought
then I recommend that you do it
and immediately put a layer of mulch over the top.
So, thank you very much for watching this video
and I really hope that these simple tips
have given you some ideas
for what you can do to reduce the impact
of drought in your garden
and I look forward to seeing again soon.