Hi all. I am thinking forward to this summer and how much rain water I can store. Unfortunately it is nowhere near enough to keep my maples happy through the months of hot weather and little rain. Here in Oxford the tap water is quite hard and I am worried that weeks/months of this will harm them. Do I have anything to worry about? Is there anything I can do to soften then water? I have read stuff about vinegar and/or Iron sulphate. I would love to hear peoples thoughts and experience with this. Thanks
So your average weekly water consumption for these maples has been less than 500 litres through the dry summer period? Then a small pond with volume at least 3 m³ could solve the problem.
Hi Luke, firstly, I have carried out rain water harvesting for several years, by way of 8 large water butts. This doesn't last too long in the Summer months though. For the past two years I have used a water softener attachment to my soaker hose. This hose waters all of my ground maples. I have only noticed a difference re the water softener when spraying the leaves in late evenings when the weather is very hot. I no longer get the chalky hard water residue that was left before. My short experience of experimenting with a water softener has shown NO difference tbh, but I need to do a couple more years to evaluate properly. If you are interested in a softener attachment, the one I am using is the Aquatiere on Amazon at £29.95 plus postage. Not cheap as it only lasts two seasons. But it balances the PH and removes the chlorine. Hope that's helped a little.
Hi again Luke, just seen your latest, I have only 38 in pots so the water butts are ample. 70 in pots is a little more difficult so consider a large butt from your roof. Rainwater is best EVERY time.
Thanks Sulev and Acerholic. I love the idea of a pond but I think a larger butt is probably more realistic. I will take a look at the Aquatiere. Thanks
