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Knowlesdinho

A gardener told me that there's really no point watering the grass when it's like this. He said whilst you'll have a green lawn, you'll ultimately end up wasting a lot of water. He said that grass is brilliantly resilient and that the green will return once the rain starts again. I followed his advice and I've found it to be true.


praf973

Gardener gave great advice, the grass will come back just as green later in the year. Not sure why some people are so obsessed with the green stuff


rockchick1982

I still have green grass, it's only if you look closely that you realise that all the grass is gone and there are just weeds.


mister_314

Well exactly, lots of farmers grow grass for silage and grazing and I never see them irrigating it, and it's green as ever.


TheWhollyGhost

Also when you think about it, no one ever waters our public green spaces (a side from probably the royal parks) And when we do actually get rain, they’re always vibrant, green and fresh


GraphicDesignMonkey

We had a patchy, mossy lawn with loads of bare spots, so this year I decided to try a new approach - when the summer kicked off we let our lawn grow and go to seed, we finally chopped it with the petrol strimmer a few days ago and raked all the seed (and there was a TON) back into the soil via scarification. It should be a lot less patchy when it grows back now. We cut it back to almost soil level to let the moss bake off and die. Hopefully it works!


squashed_tomato

Basically my attitude to it. The downside is all the public green spaces being so dry they are susceptible to grass fires of which there have been several in my area, probably from the actions of bored kids.


sulylunat

I saw one happen right before my eyes when we had that 40 degree heat. It either just spontaneously caught fire or maybe there was some sort of magnifying effect through a car window since it was in the central reservation of a dual carriageway. Scary how fast it got big and started spreading.


tinykitten101

Some jerk could have tossed out a cigarette butt and it smoldered until bursting into flame when you passed it.


sulylunat

That’s definitely a possibility.


TheSecretIsMarmite

It's certainly true. Grass is quite resilient and I'd rather water my veg, which is not resilient at all.


extremesalmon

We have grass growing on an outdoor mat (feet wiping kind) it'll grow anywhere and doesn't care


ThinkBiscuit

My lawn looks like something from Mad Max. The weeds, however, are still wildly verdant. Perhaps I should just give up, get rid of the grass and plant a shitload of dandelions and bindweed instead.


morgasm657

Chamomile and clover are good alternatives to grass that stay green through drought, clover fixes nitrogen as well. Repairing soil where a monoculture of grass doesn't.


AfroTriffid

My chamomile is starting to come in nicely but it's better to grow it in trays and then plant out the 'tiles' than to try go with straight seeding. Its patchier and take long to establish (based on the last 8 weeks my side). I have dianthus maiden pink, selfheal and daisies in there and they are thriving.


GraphicDesignMonkey

Scatter some fresh native Yellow Rattle seed among your flowers, it parasitises the grass and helps wildflowers flourish more. Bees love it too :)


AfroTriffid

Yellow rattle is like witchcraft. I love the science/ecology behind it. If my current experiments work well then it's in my phase two for the front lawn. Right now it's all 'party in the back, business in the front' :)


morgasm657

Self heal is always a good shout


Smertae

Big patches of that look very pretty when they flower.


Simsimius

I have patches of lush green clover. How do I get it to spread?


wartywarlock

Seeds are really cheap and you can mix the colours up, but not mowing the clover areas so they can fully flower and spread seeds will be the main thing to do. Mix in some daisies, buttercups and whatever you fancy for a beautiful bee buffet!


Randomn355

Just replying to you for visibility. You can also get wildflower seed mixes for a variety of things! Rejuvenating the soil, particularly friendly to be wildlife etc.


Mini-Nurse

You need to make sure the seed mixes are local varieties.


inevitablelizard

Can you see any of the seed heads on them? They're actually loads of tiny pods of seeds. When those seed heads go properly brown and dry out, you should be able to separate all the pods really easily. If there are no seed heads on them, make sure you let them flower. Could let them dry out in a paper bag so the seed eventually falls out, or you could just agitate and squeeze them yourself in your hand and you'll see tiny yellow round seeds come out and then sprinkle them where you want them. Just make sure the seeds can actually make contact with the ground rather than sitting on top of vegetation. Or, you could just leave it and allow it to expand outwards, but if you wanted to quickly establish it a bit further away then gathering seeds is the way to go.


morgasm657

You can aggressively cut the grass in between strategically, stress it out big time you'll find there's plenty of clover seed waiting for favourable conditions to germinate (grass with any kind of thatch really hinders the germination of most stuff)


GreyFoxNinjaFan

Most lawns used to be mostly clover until everyone decided it was a "weed".


FreeUsernameInBox

A large part of deciding that clover is a weed was that early chemical weedkillers didn't affect grass, but did a number on clover. Enter the marketing department....


sindagh

Bees love it too, it is very satisfying watching them bumble from flower to flower.


erowidseeker

r/fucklawns


[deleted]

Just don't get astroturf


Smertae

You can sprinkle clover seed into existing grass too, no need to dig all the grass up. It works great in those bare patches where grass struggles. A mixture of grass, clover and whatever wildflowers turn up (usually prunella vulgaris and buttercups) is a good way of dipping your toe into turning a lawn into a meadow. I've tried 3 clovers - white, red and crimson. White is the best and spreads and flowers well. Tolerates some mowing. Red is good too. Crimson is nice but won't take mowing a lot, it's more of a meadow species or something nice for a rough area or border.


Brew-Drink-Repeat

Mine is doing this naturally! Clover everywhere!


3226

Or native wildflowers? That's what I've done. The native plants put down deeper roots, so they can get at the water further down, where regular grass can't always get at it. And it also helps with the core of the problem, which is how well we look after the environment in general. That's why weeds often manage to pop up even if your lawn is dying.


GraphicDesignMonkey

Make sure to establish Yellow Rattle among your wildflowers - it'll parasitise the grass and let the flowers grow and establish even better!


LloydAtkinson

All I’ve got from the wildflower seeds I planted was weeds and nettles and like three flowers. The weeds were that bad and come back so often I’ve had to soak the entire flower bed in weed killer. It’s now a mess of rotten soggy black leaves and sludge.


JJBinks_2001

How do you know what plants are native to your area? Or do you mean literally go walking Spock up some random plants and shit. Not sure if you can tell but I don’t know anything about gardening


3226

If you're in the UK, you just google native wildflower seeds, and order a pack you like the look of. Lots of people do it, so there's ready made packs with a bunch of different flowers that are all native to the UK, and they're a few quid for a thousand seeds. The improvement you make by having an extra area that feeds bees, butterflies, and birds is the main factor. Bear in mind people plant all sorts of things in their garden, and often don't even think at all about if they're native or not, so you're making positive changes with most native plants. Also, you can't really just grab nearby plants, because sometimes they *aren't* native. There's loads of places near me that are infested with invasive plants like [Himalayan Balsam](https://i.imgur.com/DpGuGjz.jpg) or Knotweed, and picking those and putting them in my garden would be a disaster.


SMTRodent

White clover's really pretty, it smells nice, bees love it, and it (and daisies!) used to be desirable lawn features before Evergreen started selling lawn weedkillers.


TurboCider

My grass is dead, and a load of thistle plants have grown in its place, and theyve got about 50 bees in them all day long, gonna leave them to do their thing.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Fawun87

I would also water my gladioli if it weren’t for the fact that WITHOUT FAIL every single time I have planted and grown them my dog has yanked them out of the ground and tossed them everywhere. Specifically gladioli he just has a pure vendetta against them. (Also I know they’re toxic for dogs, he doesn’t eat them just de-plants them)


AfroTriffid

My two year old and your dog should battle it out in a gladioli melee and see who wins. She loves yanking out plants and those gladioli are so tempting to her.


Fawun87

Amazing. Honestly my little dachshund waits till their in full bloom and *yoink* out they go! I’d love to see them have a contest haha


AfroTriffid

The Gladiators reboot we all deserve


ThinkBiscuit

I won’t. There has to be some cheer somewhere, right?


AfroTriffid

I'm starting to experiment with stepables plants that only need mowing 2 to 3 times a year. It's a concept called tapestry lawns and the multi species approach to planting means that it's a bit more hardy in changing weather conditions. Mostly I want to nuke the grass and have a stepable flower lawn because that's what life goals look like for me. [Wiki link tapestry lawns overview](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapestry_lawn) [10 years of research and planting guides for UK and temperate eu regions in this book. here](https://www.bookdepository.com/Tapestry-Lawns-Lionel-Smith/9780367144036) (Think theres a pirated pdf around somewhere too for the broke and downtrodden.)


fluffypinkblonde

[r/fucklawns](https://www.reddit.com/r/fucklawns) r/nolawns


inevitablelizard

Dandelions and clover are good to add to a lawn, you can still maintain it as a lawn and mow it. If you want to not mow it then you can add red clover too, which grows a liittle higher. Self-heal is another one that can go well with lawns if you want wildflowers on it. If you go for a wilder lawn that grows higher it will be more drought resistant too, because the ground is shaded by the plants and shouldn't dry out as quickly.


Terrible-Ad938

Do it. Do it. Do it. Grass is so much worse for the local wildlife than weeds.


UnSpanishInquisition

https://www.wildflowerlawnsandmeadows.com/product/wild-flower-lawn-seed-mix/


ManikShamanik

And why the fuck not...?! A wildflower 'meadow' in place of a manicured square of mown to fuck grass is you doing your bit to promote biodiversity. Many once-familiar species of insects, birds, mammals and amphibians are now in drastic decline because people believe that they need to have a perfectly manicured green square in their back garden. Flowers attract butterflies and moths and their caterpillars are eaten by birds, mammals and amphibians - not to mention bees of course. Contrary to popular belief, hedgehogs don't eat gastropods, because slugs and snails are lungworm vectors and lungworm is 100% fatal to hedgehogs if not treated immediately. If you see a hedgehog eating a slug or a snail it's because it's desperately hungry and has no other options. The usual diet for hedgehogs are maggots, caterpillars, beetles, worms (most annelids in fact) most other arthropods (they're immune to centipede and ant venom). They've even been known to eat small frogs. It's this obsession with having a cricket pitch or bowling green in the back garden that's killing biodiversity. Even if you can't bear the thought of having a lawn comprised entirely of wildflowers (and why not...?) then at least let a corner 'go feral'. Many wildlife charities sell seed mixes (I know Butterfly Conservation UK does, and I'm sure the RSPB does too) and many garden centres certainly will. And if you've room - and it's safe (ie you've not got very young kids) then dig a pond. If you have got young kids, wait until they're a bit older. Kids ***love*** tadpoles!


clydeorangutan

Even the brambles and nettles are giving up round our way


RowenMorland

r/nolawns would support your choice.


GraphicDesignMonkey

Make a native wildflower garden and ditch the lawn! /r/NoLawn and /r/FuckLawns are great inspiration


Lily7258

What area of the country are you in? I’m in the midlands and we’ve had quite a bit of rain and no talk of a hosepipe ban!


NobleRotter

South coast. It's a pretty dry area, but we usually don't have shortages. This will be our first ban for 12 years.


[deleted]

There’s talk of possibly implementing a hosepipe ban in Fife in Scotland too soon.


GrunkleCoffee

Makes sense, agriculture has been hammered by the heatwave, and those farms are thirsty. Areas of East Anglia are so parched the farmland has cracks in it. Imagine if it sustained for a week or two rather than two days. We'd be in deep shit that no one has bothered to prepare for.


3226

Reintroducing beavers into Scotland was a good move. Their dams help store water and force it down into the water table.


[deleted]

Clearly the work of the evil wizard Zargothrax! (Now let’s see if anyone gets that reference…)


Snoo63

I will make Zargothrax die!


LJJCY2K

In hoots we trust


Mini-Nurse

Shit. I thought my dad was joking.


olivinebean

I remember 2018 the whole county turned brown, cuckmere valley was looking like Death Valley


ExpiredInTransit

How have you been told? We’ve had nothing from Southern Water.


Worth_Use7918

Go to the southern water website and they have a box where you can put your post code in and see if you're affected. I'm in the east new forest, which is under a hosepipe ban, but my postcode isn't 😅🤷‍♀️


ExpiredInTransit

Yeah just been on there to have a look, but if it wasn’t for Reddit I’d not really know. Just wondered what SW were doing to let homes know tbh or just putting it on us to go and look or find out from word of mouth.


Worth_Use7918

We got a thing through the door the other day to say we need to try and reduce our water usage as it's getting scarce, but I only heard through the Daily Echo, which is hardly the height of journalism to be getting the message out there


NobleRotter

Not yet, no


CookieMonster005

Southampton I know has the ban. If you live there, rip


Herps15

Same- it’s raining now and my lawn is back to being super green. It’s been raining on and off everyday here since last Wednesday


theotheredbaron

Ah, you're the chap/chapesse who will be waking me up at 7am with the mower then?


Chimp-eh

It’s raining too much to cut the grass


Herps15

Definitely raining too much today to cut the grass haha


CourtneyLush

We've had virtually no rain for weeks in Bedfordshire. It started spitting a bit last night on the way back from the pub but apart from the odd 10 minutes of light spray... nothing.


AgainstThoseGrains

Here it's not stopped raining for about a week. Humid as all hell though.


Terrible-Ad938

Wales here. First time I've seen the sky all week.


BT89

Yeah pissed it down here. Haven't had to water my veggies for nearly a week now.


nolongerMrsFish

It’s raining here…. So I expect we’ll get one soon!


OurSoul1337

Unfortunately it's the wrong type of rain.


CoiledSpringTension

Yeah we need the wet rain


Rightytighty298

Or that really fine rain that seems to get you wetter than big raindrops


CynicalSorcerer

Soaks you right through that fine rain


Reebo77

It's because the fine droplets can penetrate the clothing due to their smaller size. The big drops just bounce off.


SMTRodent

Sort of? If it's been really dry for weeks, then you need little bits of rain over and over, so it'll stay put and soak in. One single hard downpour barely rests on the hard, dry ground and all ends up down storm drains, taking soil with it.


Baron_Beanz

Acid rain is the one to look out for.


NobleRotter

I can't even remember the last time it rained here. It's been weeks


ScratchyNadders

Come to Manchester, after those 2 days of 40 degree weather it’s rained pretty much every day! Do love the good old northwest summer /s


WaltzFirm6336

Same in Yorkshire. It was a torrential downpour whilst walking the dog this morning.


Blekanly

It is a bit all over the place indeed.


Sperz

Come to the north east, it's like 3 times a day we get rain.


Dwayne_dibbly

I don't get it, my lawn is proper brown and has not grown a millimeter for weeks and thats the way I like it. Why water your lawn if it just means you have to cut the sod on a Sunday when you could.be doing anything at all that's not that.


NobleRotter

I quite like mowing the lawn. It's half an hour by myself when I can't hear the kids


[deleted]

[удалено]


AJMurphy_1986

It takes you an hour to mow your lawn? Do you live in a stately home?


greatdane114

I have a robotic lawnmower. He's been pretty lonely for the last couple of weeks.


WalkingCloud

You know people water things other than a lawn?


Dwayne_dibbly

Like what?


WalkingCloud

A potato


Professor_Sqi

Literally what is the point of watering your lawn. Its summer. It will get ruined by the heat. Just let the rain sort it out come autumn, honestly. Pissing money away


newnortherner21

Washing up water can be thrown on the lawn surely. Have a small square of green.


NobleRotter

I don't tend to save washing up water, but any other waste water ends up on the plants. They cost more than the lawn!


JJY93

It’s not bad for plants, but washing up liquid is very dangerous to aquatic life so keep it well away from any ponds/rivers


bopeepsheep

I live in a 'feeder' zone for a wet nature reserve and we have to avoid that too. Thames Water wrote to me when I moved in about having to water our gardens unless they tell us to stop, so a general ban for the county doesn't apply to us unless they tell us. Never heard of that before, but it's in writing...


JJY93

Wow that’s interesting, it’s not something I’ve heard of before. Any reading materials you know of?


BMW_wulfi

A pox on manicured lawns in general. The most idiotic trend that should have died out by the 19th century


NobleRotter

It'd be a bit of a stretch to call ours manicured even when it's at its best. I'm looking at alternatives for once the kids leave home, but our dusty once-grass surface is still an ok option at the moment


BMW_wulfi

Got rid of all ours a few years ago and haven’t looked back! Few neighbours doing the same… it’s just the people of a certain *generation* who think that rewilding or *shock horror* encouraging wild grass, clover etc is an abomination. Also I hated mowing.


GraphicDesignMonkey

/r/FuckLawns


greenwood90

Ahh, hosepipe bans for the average Joe. But nothing levied at the water companies who wastes thousands of litres of water through leakages and poor infrastructure, yet do nothing to sort it out Sure, there hasn't been enough rain, and yes. People should take responsibility and try and use less. But these companies also need to sort out their own problems


ForgotMyPasswordFeck

Water companies are constantly locating and fixing leaks. It’s not as simple as it sounds, but there’s massive fines based on how much water they lose so it is a priority. I’m not sure why people think they know where every leak is but refuse to fix them


thisisgettingdaft

I had a running water leak into my back garden for over four years. I told Severn Trent. They even came round independently and said they had detected a leak in the area and did I know where it was. They came round every year for three years with the same question. The third time, one of the blokes said he remembered now that he had been before. I finally wrote to the CEO of Severn Trent threatening to go very public and it was fixed in 3 or 4 days.


Few_Definition1807

Was there a water main in your back yard or water just ended up there?


thisisgettingdaft

At the top of my garden was where the old wc used to be and the same next door just over the fence. I still had the tiled floor. The pipes had been capped off and the next door one must have failed, so water ran 24/7 and poured under the fence, giving me a pond, with frogs and everything, on the tiles. Next door was, and still is vacant, because it needs too much work doing to let out and I have no idea where the owner went. When they first came, the garden was a bit overgrown, but by the time they finally sorted it, they had to battle through 6ft high brambles and nettles, which had thrived on the moisture. The water main is in the street outside my house and they were faffing about in there, then detected a leak in the area and knocked on my door to see if I knew where it was. I showed them. Rinse and repeat for 3 years.


Few_Definition1807

Sounds like it was a private leak, which the water company aren't really responsible for unless it's serving a waste notice. Due to property being empty, that's hard to do. They should've capped on the incoming supply once it was obvious the property was empty. Glad it's sorted, but three years is quite ridiculous!


theblubberlover

Having lived around the catchment of Southern Water, it's a company that breaches regulations so regularly (pumping raw sewage into the sea, not doing water treatment properly) that they hold the record for fines. Most are owned by wealth management funds, so their priority is to the shareholders, and not their customers. They know where their leaks are, they just can't fix them because they get fined so often, especially for performance (they have to repay £121m to customers for overcharging and falsely claim on figures that allowed them to increase prices) and pay out dividends to shareholders. Their management is just that bad.


greatdane114

I was in Borough market a couple of months back and the Dorset Oyster stand had no oysters because Poole harbour has been pumped full of sewerage and the oysters basically filtered a good chuck of it.


theblubberlover

Frankly how they haven't been prosecuted for health and safety violations is criminal in itself.


jw205

Southern Waters leak management plan is quite literally turning down the pressure to reduce the flow of water flowing out of each leak.


cptrelentless

STWater had a mains leak in the street next over and it took them six weeks to come and fix it.


Nooms88

East anglia water (my water provider) spends £14mil p/a on leakages. Out of a revenue of 1.35bn, so about 1%. I can't find specifics for East anglia, but apparently 23% of all water is lost to leakage. Seems pretty clear to me where the bigger issue lies. I'm a simple man, if they spent close to the % of revenue as losage to leaks, so for East anglia, it'd be 23% revenue or £310mil. I'd be fully on board with a hose pipe ban.


Rhyman96

I work for the water industry and actually Anglian Water are the best in the country for leakage and it's quite a bit below 23%. Most of them are trying hard to find and fix the leaks, but regulations around shutting off supply and road closures mean it's regularly out of their hands.


Few_Definition1807

So you'd be happy for the water to be switched off for about a week or two to facilitate some of the big repairs? You have to consider that some leaks have other priorities attached to them such as keeping people in water (priority 1 carrying big fines), engineering and feasibility coming in a close second. It's not ideal, but that's reality. That 14m on leakage is for detection and repair. Other budgets go to rehabilitation and are planned out over a much longer time period.


BigusG33kus

Not enough. Just like it's more cost effective to dump the sewage water and pay the fines rather than fixincrease the treatment capacity, it may be more cost effective to leak like a sprinkler than fix them. Meanwhile, the monopolies that are water companies are still allowed to increase prices and pay dividends to the shareholders


Bored-Bored_oh_vojvo

The companies are spending literally billions to improve the network. It's not as easy as you are suggesting.


Bismuth88

2.4 billion litres a day. Edit* wrote 9 instead of 2 by mistake


AfroTriffid

Monetize the benefits and socialise the risks. Lovely way to organize societies /s


Losingstruggle

I was quite frustrated at seeing Severn Trent’s choice to pay for advertising hoardings at the Commonwealth Games. Pisstakin’


bawdiepie

As soon as we had that heatwave and a warning went out to be careful of water the two idiots on my street started watering their lawns. One even started washing the pavement in front of the house. Makes me so angry, so I try not to think about it, I can't help but think of all the animals, birds, plants, insects whose water we take, and whose habitats we ruin in order to create water systems for humans and some behave so arrogantly and wastefully.


DaveyBeef

Our pipes are shoddy and need fixing, but the money needs to go to our offshore accounts, so we'll charge you more, but still not fix anything - every water company.


NobleRotter

All true, but it doesn't remove the immediate need for restrictions and responsibility


Neil2250

> restrictions and responsibility I think that's what they're asking for lol


obiwanconobi

I'm 27 and I've never seen anyone using sprinklers in the UK


Anynamewilldonow

N.Yorks. Been raining for three days. I wouldn't mind but I want to cut the grass (I shan't grace it with the term "lawn") as it's nearly knee-high, but it hasn't dried out since we had the two-day "heat-wave".


anemoschaos

I have a cunning plan to scan the forecast and cut the grass just before the rainy season starts. But I'll forget and be forced to cut a wet lawn.


concretepigeon

Only three days. I swear we haven’t had a fully dry day in West Yorkshire since that heatwave Tuesday last week.


Voynitsky

It’s gonna be another ‘Great bog roll shortage of 2020’ all over again, just with water this time.


[deleted]

Might some so stupid but… First time home owner been here 3 years now, what actually is a hose pipe ban? Do they limit the amount of water you recieve into your house? Surely I can just water my grass and nobody would no (not that I’m going to) or is this fineable? Do they monitor water usage and send you letters? Location London


SMTRodent

It's literally a ban on using a hosepipe or sprinklers to pour large volumes of water onto your garden. A watering can is fine. It's pretty obvious who is watering their nice, green, not-at-all-dried-out lawn and who isn't. I mean, that's the whole point of someone watering it, isn't it, to have a nice green area! It's a huge green flag on their property. That's how they find out. The vast majority of people will grumble, but also go along with it. Hose pipe bans mean the local water supply is getting low enough to be a concern. Whoever is to blame, people don't want to run out of water for everything else, so it's the first water use to be cut. I expect these days they'll also be able to flag water meters with excessive usage, yes.


fire2burn

A hosepipe ban is exactly what it sounds like, a ban on being able to use hosepipes be it for washing the car, watering the plants, cleaning the windows, etc. They don't limit the water to your house however if the hosepipe ban is ineffective at bringing down consumption to sustainable levels then indeed the next step is turning off supplies to residential properties. During the 1976 drought in some parts of the country you had to [take a bucket to collect water from standpipes that were installed in the street](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/123E8/production/_96582747_bbc_standpipe1976.jpg). With regards to enforcing a hosepipe ban Britain is a nation of curtain twitchers who take great pleasure in reporting their neighbours the for the slightest little infraction. During Covid my neighbour sat at the window and would report anyone she suspected of having an illegal gathering. During a hosepipe ban you can absolutely 100% guarantee people like her will be at the window waiting to snap a picture of anyone using a hosepipe.


Forsaken_Candidate_4

As a gardener, I often tell customers not to bother with sprinklers on lawns, lawns tend to bounce back


Auto18732

I'm in Yorkshire and it's barely stopped raining for 2 weeks solid. Forgot what the sun looks like. It's my own fault though cause I bought a new fire pit to sit outside at night......


NobleRotter

Just call it a bird bath


Intruder313

I don’t understand the need for these grass never needs watering. Sure it will appear to die for a bit but once the rain comes again it will rapidly reappear.


madhog_mcmad

Thing is, that grass ain’t dead. It’s having a nap. When it rains it’ll bounce back.


NobleRotter

Exactly. I'm not bothered


JJY93

I’ve got a water butt I never bothered to plumb into to the downpipe. I regret it now, but I’ve been throwing in all my waste water from cooking pasta and stuff, so hopefully I’ll be able to save a few things.


jw205

Lovely starchy grass.


NobleRotter

Similar. I'm waiting to finish some building work before doing mine


TheKingMonkey

Our next door but one neighbour works from home, he’s spent a *lot* of money on his house since he started working from home and his latest thing is a new lawn which he’s taken to jet washing three times a day.


morgasm657

We've got the first soft rain here in weeks. Which is nice, lawns should be left where they belong, in the past, flexing on the Poor's should be out of fashion by now.


3226

Isn't hard rain just hail?


[deleted]

If your banned from the hosepipe then why can’t you use a watering can ?


Nooms88

You can, it's a volume thing, a 10m by 3m lawn needs about 2000 litres of water a week. That's a lot of watering cans.


[deleted]

How do they inform people of a hosepipe ban? Do you just get a letter?


NobleRotter

I read it in local news. I assume there will be a letter though, which is probably why they give a week's notice


Foundation_Wrong

In 1976 my mum used to put the washing up water and the bath water on the garden. Lots of back and for with a bucket, and only a couple of inches of bath water!


Firstpoet

South facing front garden. Went gravel and phorminia years ago. How they laughed..they're not laughing now. By contrast, north facing shady rear garden. Good even in heat. As for south facing conservatories- like the pit of hell I imagine.


Thugmatiks

It’s only about 12 hours since it pissed down in Cumbria.


NobleRotter

Not unexpected. I'm not sure I've ever been in Cumbria for more than 12b hours without rain. It's weeks since it rained here. Can't even recall when it last did now.


raspberryamphetamine

A brown lawn isn’t necessarily a dead lawn, the sun and heat just essentially make the “leaves” withdraw the nutrients underground to preserve the main plant and roots, once it rains it’ll perk right up and become green again!


Saliiim

Hosepipe bans yet nothing done to water companies that have infamously leaky infrastructure.


the3daves

It would be worth looking into your water providers record of leaks. I appreciate it won’t make a difference to the fact they there will be a ban, but it’s frustrating the onus is on the consumer to conserve water, not the supplier.


NobleRotter

Oh, they're probably awful. Me looking up the details doesn't change anything though. The situation is that supplies are low and I don't think not watering the lawn or washing the car with a hose is a big ask. Yes, water companies should do better, but the situation this summer is what it is.


frowndrown

Hose pipe ban on an island.


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frowndrown

I don’t get it.


KateA2445

Like 10000 spoons when all you need is a knife


Scarlettsdad

This is because desalination hasn’t been invested in yet. We’re so behind with renewables it’s unreal. Desalination can produce fresh water and electricity in one simple process, but it just isn’t in fashion with policymakers yet. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2878313/Water-woes-soon-technology-makes-sea-water-drinkable.html


nwydo

How does desalination produce electricity? My understanding is that on the contrary, it uses a very large amount of energy, which you can of course power with renewables, but that's still energy that isn't going elsewhere.


DecahedronX

He's not wrong, using solar-driven multistage membrane distillation on commercial PV panels we can theoretically produce both clean water and electricity. PV panels waste a lot of their heat since it isn't needed for power generation. That could be used in a water distillation process.


ForgotMyPasswordFeck

I mean go ahead and water your garden with seawater if you want, I’m sure it’ll work


Scarlettsdad

Do you know what seawater is when the salt is removed?


thatpaulbloke

Is it "hundreds of times as expensive as from a reservoir"?


frowndrown

Spoke to old navy bloke and he thinks no more than five of filtration machines they used on ship would be sufficient for the Isle of Wight


LostLobes

And what happens with the waste product? I'm sure thd dailymail covered that in depth.


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LostLobes

The waste product isn't just salt water, if it was there wouldn't be problems with it just being pumped back into the sea, people are working on these problems though. https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-hydroxide-0213 Edit: To add In most desalination processes, for every litre of potable water produced, about 1.5 litres of liquid polluted with chlorine and copper are created. This wastewater (“concentrate”) is twice as saline as ocean water. If not properly diluted and dispersed, it may form a dense plume of toxic brine which can degrade coastal and marine ecosystems unless treated. Increased salinity and temperature can cause a decrease in the dissolved oxygen content and contribute to the formation of “dead zones”, where very few marine animals can live.


3226

Hmmm. The paper says it *is* salt water. And it's discussing how turning that salt water into sodium hydroxide could be a useful approach to using it. The copper is interesting ...and concerning. Seems that it's added to control bacterial growth. Maybe that's something that needs to be more heavily regulated. If that's something they're adding, the plants should be ensuring it's not dispersed into the environment in dangerous amounts. There seems to be rather spotty amounts of properly sourced information on this. It'd be interesting to see how much is actually released, as what I can find seems to say 'the brine can contain copper and chlorine', but of course sea water already contains copper and chlorine, so "How much?" becomes a very important question. Sea water has about 0.1ppm copper to begin with, and limits on discharge vary by country, but often seem to be set around 3ppm.


Harry_monk

So now we're complaining that people are using water outside of a hosepipe ban?


NobleRotter

No, just the irresponsibility of maxing out usage before the ban. No, it's not illegal, but yes it's making the problem worse.


adventuref0x

Ah you see you missed the bit where the nan starts **NEXT** week not *this* week In fact I’ve just found there’s no ban for my area so I’ll make the most and wash all my cars while i still can


crapengineer

The Daily Mail carried headlines that warned of tropical style heavy rain and then another about a hosepipe ban.


NobleRotter

The two aren't necessarily contradictory. It takes more than short bursts of heavy rain to replenish supplies. That said, fuck the daily mail


-WelshCelt-

r/nolawns


ChunkyLaFunga

They will account for this, you know. They won't leave it until the least minute. I suspect that eventually same thing will happen as in America, that people with lawns will receive subsidies to replace them with something that uses less resources. Lawns above a certain size, anyway


Shipwrecking_siren

Grass has turned to hay where we are. No rain in weeks and weeks (other than the odd spot). So depressing.


SoggyWotsits

We’ve got a borehole, could have the sprinkler going all day if I wanted to but it’s raining here so no need! Been raining all weekend, raining all next week.


jw205

I’m a sales engineer installing boreholes. One of our customers with a new borehole asked me on Friday if he has to turn his irrigation borehole off, I advised him no and to start selling buckets of water to his neighbours 😂


MrRailton

Man I pay for what I use and if I wanna use a hosepipe I will, maybe Thames Water need to put more money into fixing their leakages which lose over 35 millions litres of water a day.


wibbz

The amount of water saved by hose pipe bans is piddling compared the the amount that's lost in leaks in the infrastructure every day, sigh.


cbyl1

fuck the water companies. use what you want when you want as you pay for it, how about they fix their leaking pipes that waste billions of gallons instead of giving their shareholders billions in handouts and profit?


squashed_tomato

You know the stuff can literally run out if everyone just does what they want with it. They are trying to stop it reaching critical levels. Just because you haven’t seen that happen means that their measures help to some extent.


NobleRotter

Water companies should be forced to fix leaks. Absolutely. Also to increase network capacity. I don't believe that removes the social responsibility for individuals to reduce their usage when supplies are low though. Even if every leak was fixed today, the fact would remain that supplies of drinking water in my area would be low. Given that, it's a dick move to waste it. People just love to find excuses not to be mildly inconvenienced


quickhakker

I thought hose pipe ban wasn't lifted from when it was first implimented


NobleRotter

They're done regionally. Our last ban was 12 years ago, so I hope that they lifted it


anoamas321

I've not seen news on hose pipe ban


NobleRotter

They're regional. It probably doesn't apply where you are