As soon as the British drought began to unwind, gardeners were hit with a ban on hosepipes. Why is there not a ban on watering golf courses? Golf is said to have begun in Scotland as a game played on a sandy beach. If the climate is intensifying, should we stop watering greens and fairways and return the game to its dry roots in history? One well-watered golf course equates to hundreds of watered beds of plants.
To give my hose-banned garden a better chance, I have resorted to strategies learnt from hard experience. Just before the ban, I ran a bath, my first for a while. I left the water plugged in, washed off my earthy accretions and, as in the dry 1970s, transferred the water bucket by bucket to plants at risk in the garden. A big bucket, carefully poured round the roots, gives a tree a better chance of surviving until rains return. Little and often is a bad way to water. I now have buckets in the washbasins and the kitchen sink, waiting to treat trees to a top dressing of soap, scraps and toothpaste.