Landscaping News, Tips & Ideas

• Selecting Outdoor Furniture
• Landscape Lighting
• Irrigation Watering Systems
• Plant of the Month
• Importance of Fertilising
• Garden Water Feature Ideas
• Use Your Tankwater
• Laser Screens for Garden Features

Use Your Tankwater!

Are you making use of the valuable water in the tank or is it sitting idle? During the peak of Queensland's last drought, there was a mad rush for water tanks. As a result, most houses have water tanks and it's now mandatory for all new houses. Plants love rain water rather than too much town water. Plants like nitrogen and absorb a lot through rain. It is nature’s owns liquid fertiliser.

It is often hard to get the time to hand water on a regular basis. There are cheap and effective ways in which to set up a cost effective automatic watering system. If you have a small tank between 3-5000L you could simply use a battery operated controller running drip line. If the garden bed is lower than the tank you might not even need a pump as gravity should provide enough pressure.

Ideal running time for drip irrigation is once a week for approximately 40 minutes. If you have tanks above 10 thousand litres then it is worthwhile installing a proper irrigation system. The stronger the pump the less irrigation stations you will need.  You can still put a proper irrigation system in if you have only a small tank however you will need to install a mains water converter for when the thanks run dry. For a standard yard you would use about a thousand litres per watering cycle.