LET THEM DRINK … WATER

Evening Standard; London (UK), Jun 17, 2009 | by Pattie Barron

VIGILANT gardeners do not leave their plots all summer but only take a holiday come October. The rest of us leave our gardens to take their chances with the weather and hopefully an obliging neighbour who might wield a watering can. If you want no nasty surprises on your return, my advice is to prepare your garden before you leave.
Plan your pots accordingly. Once it dries out, multi-purpose soilless compost is a nightmare to re-wet, so if you’re planting up containers, mix 50/50 with John Innes soil-based compost to add some holding power. Before you go, move all your containers to a shady, sheltered spot on the patio and keep them close together, so that you create a mini-microclimate for them, as well as make watering duty easier. Give them a good long drink and liquid fertiliser feed before you go, and mulch bare compost with grit, gravel, shells or pebbles that help prevent compost from drying out.
Be tough and deadhead all but the newest, freshest flowers so the plant can conserve its strength. Consider potting up small, individual plants into larger containers to increase chances of survival. Even the closest friendship is tested when a plant carer is faced with hun-dredof petunia flowers that need deadheading and watering every five minutes to prevent wilting, and worse.
Pelargoniums, gazanias, lantanas and osteospermums — those cheerful South African daisies — will keep going through a low- water regime for a week or two. Succulents, cacti and houseleeks will thrive on neglect. Now could be the moment to buy three agaves, pot them into tall zinc containers, range them in a row, and congratulate yourself on a disciplined and stylish display that needs no maintenance whatsoever.
Lawns can be left, and benefit from their own holiday away from the twiceweekly mow. Longer grass is a prettier, prairie-type sight to return to than the usual scalped lawn that, come July, is starting to turn a paler shade of straw. Irrigation systems can be a godsend if they behave — and a disaster if they don’t. Horror stories abound among garden designers, such as the 500 newly- planted lavender bushes in the parterre of a Hampstead front garden that promptly died when the gardener left in charge forgot to flick a switch. Choose a fullyautomated system and, before you leave for distant shores, give it a dry run so that you don’t return to a dry border. If you have masses of pots, setting up an irrigation system that delivers water to each and every one could necessitate a long enforced rest in a Swiss clinic rather than a beach holiday in Ibiza.
If you go away a lot — or leave the garden for most weekends — then plan your plot accordingly, too, so you can holiday in future without leaving your garden with a day-to-day babysitter. Instead of cutting down on flowers and foliage with excesses of paving or concrete, run swathes of gravel or slate through the garden — lay down a weed-suppressing membrane first – and make a feature of the occasional, easy-to-work raised bed. Choose fuss-free plants that won’t suffer if left: rugosa roses, everlasting sweet pea, native shrubs and trees such as Viburnum opulus, buddleia, crab apple and ground-hugging juniper as well as ornamental grasses. Instead of struggling with delphiniums and lupins, encourage foxgloves and campanulas to self-seed. Plant plenty of allium bulbs in autumn, include the later-flowering Allium sphaerocephalon, to ensure masses of purple drumsticks come summer that need no watering, no deadheading, and have the grace to fade beautifully on their elegant stems. Just make sure you are back in time to enjoy them.
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Rugosa roses such as Belle Poitevine are far tougher and need less water than most other roses
Be tough and deadhead all but the newest, freshest flowers so the plant can conserve its strength

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