The Green Gardener is a Council service to provide homeowners or tenants with advice about good gardening practices; for adapting gardens to local conditions and using water efficiently while creating stunning gardens.
This summer the Council has launched Green Gardener Nighbourhood Visits. This is a fun way to get to know your neighbours and learn more about achieving thriving gardens.
The Green Gardener will visit your neighbourhood and spend two hours outlining:
- your neighbourhood's micro–climate, its challenges and opportunities
- great plants suited to where you live
- how to make the most of the water available
- how you can grow food for you and your family
- the art of compost and keeping soil healthy
- how to work together to capture a bargain.
The fee for this is just $60, so whether it is for a small group or 20 neighbours, the price is the same.
The Green Gardener will visit three homes but will also be available to answer individual questions as the group walks around the neighbourhood.
This is also an ideal service for schoolchildren learning about gardening or community groups looking for a fun activity.
The neighbourhood visits will be available over the summer on Thursday mornings, afternoons and evenings.
Just book through the Council and pay the Green Gardener upon arrival.
Any questions, please contact the Water Use Co-ordinator on 296-4700.
Tips for the summer
Waterwise tips - water is life!
Water is one of our most important resources, so we must consider every drop as precious.
What can you do at home to do your bit towards conserving our community supply? Over the next few months I’ll be sharing with you some tips to keep your garden thriving while conserving water at the same time.
Healthy soil is the foundation of a healthy garden
Healthy soil is the key to your garden hanging on to any water that comes its way. Therefore, keeping your soil fertility up is your number one job this summer. Healthy soil is full of organic matter. The difference between cracked, dry soil and rich soil full of worms is the amount of organic matter it contains and the number of living soil organisms present. These organisms, which include worms, do many important jobs for you. They keep your plants fed and watered, aerate your soil, and fight soil-borne disease. If you put your energy into feeding these hard workers your plants will be well looked after, needing minimal intervention from you. Living soil also encourages your plants to grow big strong healthy roots. Deep rooting plants have access to a wide range of minerals and to their own water supply, only needing the occasional deep soak to get through the dry summer.
How do you keep your soil fertility up?
Simply keep your mulch layer topped up over the summer. All you need to do is layer bits and pieces of organic matter on top of your soil. What can you recycle from your own garden and neighbourhood? Use a mix of dry and wet products to create a balanced mulch – leaf mould, seaweed, grass clippings, aged manures, mushroom compost, hay, homemade compost, vermicast or peastraw. Mulching a little and often is the best way. Do not let any dirt be bare in your garden this summer, and think of bare dirt as dead dirt. Dead dirt is either a bottomless thirsty pit, or a water repellent with the water running off the hard surface, which does not support plants to be healthy.
Mulch! Mulch! Mulch! Mulch is very important
Mulch provides a protective skin over your garden keeping moisture in and providing a dark, moist environment in which to keep your soil organisms happy. Before you mulch your garden make sure it has a good soak and a good feed (use things like liquid seaweed, blood and bone, compost). As soon as your garden is nice and moist, mulch. For extra summer staying power layer wet newspaper beneath your mulch. If you use wood-based mulches it is important to add some nitrogen like blood and bone, chook poo or compost. Wood and sawdust chew up nitrogen as they break down, robbing your plants of this important mineral.
Living mulches are the height of low maintenance
A living mulch is simply a mulch made up of plants – that is a garden with no gaps in it. If you have any gaps in your garden throw in some wild flower seeds, green crop seeds, low growing herbs, vegetables or flowers to scramble around and cover the ground for you over summer. It is essential to protect your soil from the harsh sun and drying wind and to keep the moisture in. Plants grow best in a community. Notice how well the plants that are closely grouped together in your own garden grow. As well as keeping your soil and plants healthy, there is no room for weeds either!
Collect your own water for gardening
Once you have got into the rhythm of keeping your soil healthy, you need to create a plan to collect your own water to use for gardening. Recycling your greywater is a very smart solution. If you are growing fruit or have a lot of new plantings you will need regular irrigation over the summer. When you recycle your own water you are reaching the lofty heights of sustainable living! If a greywater system is beyond your budget there are cheaper ways to recycle bath and washing machine water. We have great local providers in Kapiti for both these options. If you are fit, bucketing your water by hand is a good option. Believe me, after a summer of it you will be inspired to save up for a greywater system!
We should all have a rainwater tank
There are many styles of rainwater tank available – ones for under the house, between the house and garage, or bladders which squeeze beneath your deck. Rainwater collection is a sustainable solution and you will be amazed at how much water you collect off your roof. Find a tank to suit you this summer and get ready to install one in the autumn.
What is the most efficient way to water?
Water with a hand-held hose, a watering can or soaker hose for maximum efficiency. Sprinklers are hugely inefficient. Every hour your sprinkler spreads about 1,000 litres – a great percentage of which is lost to evaporation. As far as plant health is concerned sprinklers are not great either – they only encourage shallow root growth. A deep soak is important for overall plant health, because when your plant sends down long strong roots to find water it gains access to a wider range of nutrition, and builds strength against wind. A deep soak is much better for your community water supply, too.
Where do you water?
Water at the roots of your plants, where they need it. There is no water wasted here, and no danger of fungal problems with wet leaves. A long gentle soak of the soil is the ultimate for the plant. If a soaker hose does not suit your budget, then insert upside down bottles with their bases cut off. Fill the bottle to the top and let the water slowly soak in during the day. If you are growing vegetables trenches are great, too. Create shallow trenches between your rows and soak the trenches with water using your hand-held hose. It is the roots that need the moisture to grow the good tops.
Which plants do you water?
If your plant is not thirsty, then do not water it. Check first before watering: what is your plant telling you? Are the leaves parched, curled or wilted? Or is your plant happily standing to attention? How does the soil feel? Push your finger right in. It is okay if the top layer is dry, but below that it should feel moist. Newly planted trees and plants will need a good soak every now and then. Fruit trees and vegetables will need regular irrigation to keep fruit healthy and plump. Containers will need crystals in them to retain water, and place them in the semi-shade to stop them guzzling water. Well-planned perennial borders should not need any water, and lawns do not either.
When do you water?
Any time the sun is not beating down evaporating the water as fast as you are spreading it. Early morning is the best time to soak your garden because having a slightly dry garden at night helps slow the slugs down. It also helps prevent fungal problems. Check before you water becasue gone are the days of watering habitually. Poke your finger in a full finger depth. Is your soil moist? If it is then leave the watering for another day.
Group plants close to save water
If you group your plants closely then you will be retaining a lot more water in your garden. Try groups instead of rows. Make sure you have no bare soil in sight. If your plants are in pots, grouping them together will stop them drying out so fast. Plants grow better in a community; together they protect the soil from the sun and wind, keeping the moisture in and the all-important soil biology active. Use big rocks or bits of driftwood to double as garden art and soil protection.
Invest in a good hose
Cheap hoses leak in the blink of an eye. If your hose leaks fix it immeidately! Make sure you always have a few hose connectors on hand to fix leaks as they occur. Every now and then re-do the hand-held attachment to avoid it leaking. Simply take the attachment off and use sharp secateurs to cut off the end of the hose and re-fit the attachment tightly.
There is no bigger waste of our community water than watering a lawn
If your lawn goes brown, do not panic – it will bounce back! Check out the Green Gardener workshops in autumn and learn how to create a good hardy lawn. The best lawns are prepared in autumn. Many good Kapiti Coasters have caught onto the idea of brown lawns. Brown lawns are more green than green ones! If you must have a green lawn, grow kikuyu or couch.
For those out there who love your lawns this is for you!
Mow as high as you can take it. Pluck a piece of grass and notice how it grows - see the ‘trunk’? Grass has a trunk, and just like a tree this trunk feeds the green tops. What chance of being thick and green does it have when every other weekend you cut into its means of getting food? Lawns are just another garden. They have the same requirements for health as all your other plants. They need protection from the elements to retain moisture. The best way you can do this is to mow high and leave as dense a ground cover as possible. You are never going to have a good thick sward of grass by creating bare patches. Weeds grow in those spots so mow high!
Is your lawn sporting a stripey look?
What a shame that it is only showing you its dry side. This means every time you mow you use the same old pattern – pushing your poor grass over the same way, probably at the same time every Saturday. Your challenge is to break free and mow in the opposite direction every other week! Pushing the grass back up to standing each time you mow is much more handsome and healthy. Now it can show you its nice green tops! Mowing little and often keeps it thicker, too – thicker lawns mean less weeds and less moisture loss. The ultimate organic lawn-feeding regime is taking off your catcher and leaving your lawn clippings to lightly sprinkle around your lawn as you mow. This gives your lawn a gentle, natural hit of nitrogen and provides some mulch cover to prevent moisture loss. Just make sure that come the autumn you give your lawn a vigorous going over with a rake to get rid of any thatch build up.
Did you know you may be making your lawn brown just by overdoing chemical fertiliser?
Chemical fertilisers create an acid environment which most weeds love, but worms and soil organisms hate. You are better off to support below soil life by gently feeding lawns with lime, blood and bone or seaweed. Worms do a great job of looking after your lawn. They aerate it and constantly bring minerals up from below. Without worms your soil is unhealthy, and without healthy soil your lawn is unhealthy. Tough, practical grasses like ryes prefer alkaline soil, too.
If you have clovers in your lawn – you don’t know how lucky you are!
Clovers are from the legume family and fix nitrogen in your soil. They feed your lawn for free! They also capture dew very nicely in their round leaves providing extra moisture. They develop strong root systems to support grasses and fight off weeds. If you keep the tops mowed you will have a nice thick green sward, and if you leave the tops on you have your own wildflower meadow. Clover grows fast from seed, so if you have a bare patch try some.
Notice how the only lovely bit of lawn in February is the spot under the tree?
Trees are hugely beneficial to the overall wellbeing of your garden. All your plants will do much better under the protection of a small tree. Trees mine minerals from the deep and cycle them to the top. They improve and stabilise soil structure, retain water and soften the blow of wind and rain. Choose your trees carefully. How tall can your tree grow before it blocks out your sun or view? If you only have room for a three or four metre tree then choose accordingly. Choose trees that will not need a big, expensive prune each year. Deciduous trees provide you with lots of free mulch in the autumn and let in winter sun. Consider a fruit tree for lovely blossom and fruit to eat. Or a light dappled tree like a kowhai to feed the birds. Choose one that will not get too dark and oppressive. And do not plant your trees until autumn. Whatever you choose, think carefully. A tree is for life.
What have you learnt about your garden this summer?
What improvements can you make for next summer? Have you chosen plants that best suit your environment? Do you need more organic matter in your soil (the answer is always yes!) Do you have enough shelter from the wind? Do you need more summer shade? Do you have gaps that need filling to eliminate bare soil? Are you set up for easy compost-making and in the habit of collecting mulch? Have you installed your rainwater and/or greywater recycling? Invest in a few hours with a landscaper to help sort out any problem areas. Do any new planting over the cooler months so plants can get established using the winter/spring rains. To really get summer sorted in your patch, you must get ready this autumn.
Reduce reliance on town water
Rainwater
If you are interested in using rainwater on your garden, see the brochure Are rain tanks enough for your garden? (4 pages, 163kb) to look at how much rain water you can realistically expect to collect, as well as water-efficient ways of gardening.
For information about how rain tanks can supply water for the toilet and laundry in your home and about the necessary Building Consents for adapting your home to a rain water supply, click here to take you to the website of the North Shore City Council.
Rain gardens soak up rainwater from the downpipe, driveway and lawn. As it rains, it fills up and temporaily ponds before the water soaks away. Rain gardens not only water themselves, they also excel at reducing pollutants (fertilizers, zinc off the roof, bird droppings, etc) and help reduce chances of localised flooding.
The University of Wisconsin (UoW) has developed some community extension courses on sustainable water use. Click here for the UoW contents page that contains a variety of interesting topics. If you want a general overview of raingardens, there is an 8-page document or download the full manual (3mb).
Bore water
Kapiti’s geology means there is water in deep aquifers and shallow groundwater, with the latter an ideal source for gardens.
If everyone uses the water sensibly by irrigating in the cool of the day in calm conditions, up to 70% of the water will return to the shallow groundwater table.
Bores offer a more reliable water supply than rain water but often have a lower water quality. Bore water often contains iron and managanese and may stain your concrete and walls of your home.
If you would like to use borewater, you will need to get a permit from Greater Wellington Regional Council. Most bore installers will assist you with getting the permit.
Greywater
Greywater is the wastewater produced by the household including water from the sink, bath, shower, washing machine and dishwasher, but not the toilet. The Council recommends using greywater in times of extended dry weather when there are no other options available.
You can use greywater to water your garden, but as there are associated health risks you need to read the article Greywater and your health (7 pages, 123kb) first and commit to running a well-maintained greywater system.
Planting in Kapiti
Before planting out your garden, take a walk around the neighbourhood and see which plants seem to grow easily in the local environment.
Mulch
Catching spring rain with mulch will keep plant roots moist and cool.
Summer on the Coast: Prepare Now, Enjoy Later (1 page, 1mb) is an informative guide to mulching which appeared in the Kapiti Observer.
Irrigation
Water use more than doubles in the summer months as people use sprinklers on their gardens and lawns. Not only is this time consuming, older sprinklers can be quite inefficent and waste a lot of water.
However, with modern advances in irrigation technology, you can create watering systems that keep your garden and lawn happy, without waste or you wandering around the garden. Water clocks, for example, can be programmed to water a couple of times a week and will deliver the right amount of water your plants need.
Designing a system for your garden and lawn will need a bit of thought but it is not rocket science. In fact, there are user friendly software packages to help you design your irrigation system in a step-by-step process. If you have a keen DIY spirit, check out the following links and get cracking on putting in your irrigation system: