I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

Hosepipe bans are a fabulous way of water companies making more money, so
yes expect more in future.
D

hazchem wrote:

I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

"D Russell" wrote in message
...
Hosepipe bans are a fabulous way of water companies making more money, so
yes expect more in future.

Depends on the proportion of metered households. If a high proportion of
metered houses, then revenue wil fall with reduced consumption. If, however,
the majority are unmetered, then the income remains the same while costs
fall due to having to process less water.

hazchem wrote:
I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

I think we should _always_ try to plant with an eye to using as little
water as possible, regardless of hosepipe bans. Watering is no way to
spend one's weekends, and you get a better garden if the plants like
the natural conditions there. I'm not a purist on this, any more than I
am about anything else: at some times and in some places and for some
plants you've got to water, and there's nothing else for it. But much
of the watering I see people doing is a waste of effort.

--
Mike.

Mike Lyle wrote:
hazchem wrote:
I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

I think we should _always_ try to plant with an eye to using as little
water as possible, regardless of hosepipe bans. Watering is no way to
spend one's weekends, and you get a better garden if the plants like
the natural conditions there. I'm not a purist on this, any more than I
am about anything else: at some times and in some places and for some
plants you've got to water, and there's nothing else for it. But much
of the watering I see people doing is a waste of effort.

YES! And collect water from every roof on your property )

"Graculus" wrote in message
...
"D Russell" wrote in message
...
Hosepipe bans are a fabulous way of water companies making more money, so
yes expect more in future.

Depends on the proportion of metered households. If a high proportion of
metered houses, then revenue wil fall with reduced consumption. If,
however, the majority are unmetered, then the income remains the same
while costs fall due to having to process less water.

The actual production cost of water is tending towards zero. Sewage
treatment costs a bit but the largest cost is associated with the
distribution and maintenance of pipework.
There is no shortage of water in the UK as a whole and the environmental
impact of water saving schemes has never been quantified. Excessive wastage
and usage of water really does not have any significant environmental
impact.

Rupert (W.Yorkshire) wrote:

The actual production cost of water is tending towards zero. Sewage
treatment costs a bit but the largest cost is associated with the
distribution and maintenance of pipework.
There is no shortage of water in the UK as a whole and the environmental
impact of water saving schemes has never been quantified. Excessive wastage
and usage of water really does not have any significant environmental
impact.

Rupert, if you came to my village, you would see it under water! Whole
lines of trees uprooted. My heavy clay is saturated and I have 3 trees
laying on their sides with the roots in the air. We are going to try
and put them back with stakes for support.

I cannot understand all these water shortages in England where we have
far more rainfall than, say, Provence and yet they manage without
hosepipe bans.

Judith at home in England

On 19 Jan, 21:34, "Mike Lyle" wrote:
hazchem wrote:
I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

I think we should _always_ try to plant with an eye to using as little
water as possible, regardless of hosepipe bans. Watering is no way to
spend one's weekends, and you get a better garden if the plants like
the natural conditions there. I'm not a purist on this, any more than I
am about anything else: at some times and in some places and for some
plants you've got to water, and there's nothing else for it. But much
of the watering I see people doing is a waste of effort.

--
Mike.

I am growing more and more grape vines on my allotment and fewer and
fewer vegetables. I don't know how the people who run the site will
react to this. They may not like it. I'm sure some of them will
disapprove. It will help me explain if I say that I am anticipating
hose pipe bans every year, and that watering vegetables with a watering
can makes traditional allotment gardening more difficult than in the
past.

However, if we will be getting wetter winters as well as hotter drier
summers then maybe it will not happen every year.

Andrew.

(1) Most Mediterranean areas of France and Italy have similar or rather higher rainfall than SE England, contrary to popular belief (Marseille's annual rainfall is 546mm, about the same as London, but hilly topography means that nearby inland locations are generally rather wetter. More typical is Naples, where annual rainfall is 915mm, similar to Manchester.)
(2) Many parts of SE France benefit from large amounts of water coming off the Alps and passing through their area in large rivers such as the Rhone, which they can harvest.
(3) Expecting a long dry summer, and having lower population density than SE England, many Mediterranean areas of Europe devote considerably larger land areas to storage reservoirs than we do.
(4) Areas of SE France without convenient Alpine water (eg, around Nice) do have very serious water shortage problems in some years. Severe restrictions on the use of water may be imposed in such cases. In some years they suffer the opposite problem of torrential summer downpours which make the Boscastle flood look like a slight inconvenience.
(5) Water in SE France is universally metered. Prices per m3 of water in SE France are generally rather higher than in Britain. In some areas of known water shortage, eg around Nice, you have to "reserve" your water use in advance and pay for that reserved quantity without any refund for under-use. If you exceed your reservation, there is a much higher penalty rate/m3 you must pay. This means French municipalities (which often employ private water companies) have a lot more money to spend on making sure they have supply than UK water companies.

Thankfully after reading through this post we finally get a sensible response, the previous one (not mine).

Water companies do not impose hosepipe bans for the sake of it. Yes some areas of the UK may have had high levels of rain last year and noted that their river etc were high, or they even experienced floods. But this doesn't mean that London did and it takes a long sustained period of rain to raise the reservoirs. Floods are caused by intense rain over a short period.

There is less chance of a hosepipe ban this year as the last three months have shown higher than average rainfall. I am also in agreement with the last post that London has lower rainfall than places like Rome, surprisingly.

Water companies draw attention to the loss of water through the high leakage rates by imposing bans. Fixing these leaks is costly and I don't know why people may believe that water companies are profiting by creating a hosepipe ban. Is this part of our culture now, that we now think that everybody is out to rip us off?

Irrespective of the bans, we should be recycling water and making efficient use of the water we have. Forget spray guns, use an automatic watering system where possible. Get a water butt and start storing water.

In my opinion the same goes for electric. Forget standby, switch of at the wall.

Ainsley
garden4less.co.uk

On 24 Jan, 11:55, "hazchem" wrote:
On 19 Jan, 21:34, "Mike Lyle" wrote:

hazchemwrote:
I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

I think we should _always_ try to plant with an eye to using as little

water as possible, regardless of hosepipe bans. Watering is no way to
spend one's weekends, and you get a better garden if the plants like
the natural conditions there. I'm not a purist on this, any more than I
am about anything else: at some times and in some places and for some
plants you've got to water, and there's nothing else for it. But much
of the watering I see people doing is a waste of effort.

--
Mike.

I am growing more and more grape vines on my allotment and fewer and
fewer vegetables. I don't know how the people who run the site will
react to this. They may not like it. I'm sure some of them will
disapprove. It will help me explain if I say that I am anticipating
hose pipe bans every year, and that watering vegetables with a watering
can makes traditional allotment gardening more difficult than in the
past.

However, if we will be getting wetter winters as well as hotter drier
summers then maybe it will not happen every year.

Andrew.

According to the gardening section of this Saturday's Daily Telegraph,
there may be 10% to 30% more rain in winter, but there may also be 20%
to 50% less rain in summer. Overall (by 2080) there may be a 10% to
20% decrease in mean annual rainfall. So I would think hosepipe bans
are more likely in the future. The article says we should store rain
water, but I don't think that for most people that will go very far.

In article . com,
hazchem wrote:

On 24 Jan, 11:55, "hazchem" wrote:
On 19 Jan, 21:34, "Mike Lyle" wrote:

hazchemwrote:
I was thinking that maybe we will be getting hosepipe bans every year,
but then I thought maybe we will get more rain in winter. Should we all
plant taking into account bans every year or not?

I think we should _always_ try to plant with an eye to using as little

water as possible, regardless of hosepipe bans. Watering is no way to
spend one's weekends, and you get a better garden if the plants like
the natural conditions there. I'm not a purist on this, any more than I
am about anything else: at some times and in some places and for some
plants you've got to water, and there's nothing else for it. But much
of the watering I see people doing is a waste of effort.

--
Mike.

I am growing more and more grape vines on my allotment and fewer and
fewer vegetables. I don't know how the people who run the site will
react to this. They may not like it. I'm sure some of them will
disapprove. It will help me explain if I say that I am anticipating
hose pipe bans every year, and that watering vegetables with a watering
can makes traditional allotment gardening more difficult than in the
past.

However, if we will be getting wetter winters as well as hotter drier
summers then maybe it will not happen every year.

Andrew.

According to the gardening section of this Saturday's Daily Telegraph,
there may be 10% to 30% more rain in winter, but there may also be 20%
to 50% less rain in summer. Overall (by 2080) there may be a 10% to
20% decrease in mean annual rainfall. So I would think hosepipe bans
are more likely in the future. The article says we should store rain
water, but I don't think that for most people that will go very far.

If the Daily Telegraph is correct, there will be no drought - because
drought is caused not by lack of summer rainfall (most of which
evaporates or is immediately transpired) but by lack of winter
rainfall. The aquifers rely almost exclusively on winter rainfall to
provide our year-round water needs.

In article , Stan The Man
writes

If the Daily Telegraph is correct, there will be no drought - because
drought is caused not by lack of summer rainfall (most of which
evaporates or is immediately transpired) but by lack of winter
rainfall. The aquifers rely almost exclusively on winter rainfall to
provide our year-round water needs.


What annoys me with the use of aquifers is that, by banning garden
watering in the areas that are used to catch the rain to fill the
aquifers, (IYSWIM) surely there will be a dearth of water in perhaps
several years time when no ground water has been allowed to percolate
down through the sub soil?
Or is that not the case?
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

In article , Janet Tweedy
wrote:

In article , Stan The Man
writes

If the Daily Telegraph is correct, there will be no drought - because
drought is caused not by lack of summer rainfall (most of which
evaporates or is immediately transpired) but by lack of winter
rainfall. The aquifers rely almost exclusively on winter rainfall to
provide our year-round water needs.


What annoys me with the use of aquifers is that, by banning garden
watering in the areas that are used to catch the rain to fill the
aquifers, (IYSWIM) surely there will be a dearth of water in perhaps
several years time when no ground water has been allowed to percolate
down through the sub soil?
Or is that not the case?

Not the case - garden watering takes place at a time of year when
rainfall is of little or no benefit to the underground supplies.
Whether you water or not, summer rainfall has no chance of percolating
down to the aquifers.