07/05/2026
Water is an essential nutrient for life.
With all of this high heat and drought, many plants are stressed and in decline. For trees, they may show rapid decline and death within days, or it may take YEARS for the impact of this year's drought to show.
This past week, I was reminded of how bad a parent I was to my landscape plants during the severe heat I stayed inside to avoid. When I did go outside, I saw wilted and brown-edged leaves on many of the perennials, shrubs, and tree saplings I had planted earlier in the spring. [Don't worry. I have been giving them water over the last three days after I realized I had unwittingly neglected them, and they are bouncing back!] But this goes to show you how easily we can take our plants for granted when self-preservation kicks in.
The home my family and I live in used to have a well water supply, but long ago it got converted to city water. Which brings me to my next point. It can also be expensive to keep your trees, shrubs, flowers, and lawn adequately hydrated. So how do you prioritize what to water?
If you live in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association (HOA), you may not have much of a choice, and usually maintaining a green lawn is a mandatory part of their CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions). Sadly, sometimes this does leave much of a budget left to water your property's most valuable assets: your trees.
Whether it's your budget, a municipality with restrictive ordinances, or a nosy HOA neighbor who gets a thrill every time they report alleged infractions, there are a few creative ways you might want to consider if you want to harvest and reserve water for those long rainless days.
I'll expand on these in my next post, but what got me thinking about this was a YouTube video I just watched about a rainwater harvesting project in Tucson, Arizona, that started many years ago through an illegal act and later blossomed (literally & figuratively) into legally mandated policy! Check it out at the link below.
Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison journeys to Tucson, Arizona...
