Smart Garden Watering.

This website has much to offer. A quick glance confirms many of my choices, which is encouraging.

We live in a terrace house in Brunswick. The front garden has two trees, a Pittostporum, ‘Peter Stirling’ which is not really in the right place, and an ornamental flowering crab-apple. There are a few shrubs, Philadelphus mexicanus, an Abelia xgrandiflora and some camellias, ‘Janet Waterhouse’ and ‘E.G. Waterhouse’ variegated, and a few others. The front garden needs some further thought – as to the design.

Along the side there are a few shrubs – Nandina domestica, two more camellias and an Alister Clark climbing rose ‘Black Boy, Akebia quinata that is claiming more territory than it really needs and an outgrown pot of Aspidistra elatior that needs to be moved into the shade.

The back yard is largely paved, but we do have a hardy persimmon,

Diospyros sp.



Five years ago this tree was stripped of all its leaves by possums. As the drought continued, the tree was defoliated again the following year. I thought that the tree was doomed, but I kept watering it. The following two years, it grew leaves, but no fruit. With the heavy rain earlier this year, I am amazed and delighted to find that it has borne an abundance of fruit – which the birds pilfer by day and the possums by night! The fruit that we can salvage is beautiful!

We also have two feijoas, Acca sellowiana, grafted varieties, ‘Mammoth’ and ‘Large Oval’. The ‘Mammoth’ tree received the same attention from the possums as the persimmon. Only the lower two branches had any leaves left on them. The tree became so stressed, that it has sprouted from the stock. But it has also recovered, and this year is producing lovely large fruits.

We have a number of pots which have some of the plants recommended for back yards and cottage gardens. Plants such as Rosa banksiae, Escallonia species, a number of salvias, lavenders, kangaroo paws and herbs.

We use rainwater collected from the roof of our house and grey water to water our plants. We seldom use any reticulated water. I look forward to having more time to browse through this website and see how others have managed to garden despite the water restrictions.