Water thief's and irrigation

[LICY]

Just been looking on the forum at an old issue of stolen water in the latter part of 2009. We are having our villa built and are close to Joanne who had problems herself. not sure if systems are fitted any differently now, but should we put locks on the water meter taps and if so is it the DIY version?

we need to have the garden landscaped. We will not be having any grass because of the up keep. we still want plants and will have to have them watered. We do not have a cisterna in the project as there is no money for that. does anyone know about installing irrigation? Is it something that an expert needs to do or can we? Where would it link up to the water? If we get someone to install should it be an irrigation firm or general landscapers? Any recommendations? we intend to have stones and bark installed in the garden we should be able to do some of the work ourselves. Also want to put the matting down to reduce weeds appearing. is the matting easily obtained? is it much the same price in Portugal as UK? Enough questions. LICY

[Bruce Wallis]

Harsh reality out here Yvette:

Garden means irrigation, means water, means cost.

I have never seen evidence of water theft.

We have a large garden, we have an automatic irrigation system, and our annual water bill is very high.

Having said that....we get alot of pleasure from our garden!!

[LICY]

Bruce do you have brass and a lot of thirsty plants? Did you get the irrigation installed and if so who do you recommend. you say high bill but is that all your water consumption? What is a typical annual charge?
glad the wife had some enjoyment this morning.

[pato]

I have a small garden and an irrigation system, well I suppose you could say I've had three systems, the first two stolen, the thieves removed the little computer thing that controls the timing, it appears they're very saleable, twice they struck, until I had it "securely"connected in a boiler house.
I find it a con, mine was fitted by a garden contract company as a time saver, they complained that it was taking too much time to water the plants manually, so I went along with the suggestion and was naive enough to suggest that seeing as they weren't spending as much time on the garden would I be eligable for a reduction in charges, No! they could spend more time on the garden! but nothing changed they only tidy it when I'm due over, everything was as usual apart from the fact that my water bill escalated out of all proportion.
Then of course you have ongoing problems such as half the jets get blocked and moved and you find you've been watering a weed for six months, the water runs away, and the pump keeps you awake during the night, and my itsy bitsy little twigs are still there sticking out of the sand, all shapes and sizes like nightmare Picasso landscape.
It's been a bit of a disaster I suppose on the whole, maybe I was unlucky, but think about it before you tread the rocky expensive road in your attempts to possess the best garden on the block, it could cost you sleepless nights and an arm and a leg.

[LICY]

Bruce do you have brass and a lot of thirsty plants? Did you get the irrigation installed and if so who do you recommend. you say high bill but is that all your water consumption? What is a typical annual charge?
glad the wife had some enjoyment this morning.

Actually whilst Bruce may have brass I think his garden may have grass. Problem with iPad's are they choose the word it thinks you want. ha, ha should really read my posts.

[LICY]

I have a small garden and an irrigation system, well I suppose you could say I've had three systems, the first two stolen, the thieves removed the little computer thing that controls the timing, it appears they're very saleable, twice they struck, until I had it "securely"connected in a boiler house.
I find it a con, mine was fitted by a garden contract company as a time saver, they complained that it was taking too much time to water the plants manually, so I went along with the suggestion and was naive enough to suggest that seeing as they weren't spending as much time on the garden would I be eligable for a reduction in charges, No! they could spend more time on the garden! but nothing changed they only tidy it when I'm due over, everything was as usual apart from the fact that my water bill escalated out of all proportion.
Then of course you have ongoing problems such as half the jets get blocked and moved and you find you've been watering a weed for six months, the water runs away, and the pump keeps you awake during the night, and my itsy bitsy little twigs are still there sticking out of the sand, all shapes and sizes like nightmare Picasso landscape.
It's been a bit of a disaster I suppose on the whole, maybe I was unlucky, but think about it before you tread the rocky expensive road in your attempts to possess the best garden on the block, it could cost you sleepless nights and an arm and a leg.

sounds awful. we have had enough problems with our build, don't want it with irrigation too. I hope I get some more responses as I really don't know what to do. I don't want thirsty plants, but I do want some colour. bouganvillia (spelling?) as we have a massive wall at the back of our plot to hide. maybe grasses, lavender.

[laserblazer]

I have it in mind that we were quoted €600 to fit a sprinkler system in our modest garden. As we have no grass and plan on mainly drought resistant plants, we are hoping the odd bucket of water will do the trick.

[LICY]

How long has it been installed LB? What have you found are the best plants to plant?

[laserblazer]

We didn't get an irrigation system in the end unless you call trundling back and forth with a bucket!

[widge]

Irrigation is expensive to install and the running costs are high. Pato's comments are valid and you need to keep a constant eye on which plants get the precious water.

If I could have planned our garden from scratch I would have disregarded the lawn and the water thirsty plants and got a landscape gardener to design a Southern European garden which is used to the arrid conditions.

[EMM]

You can have bit of the best of both worlds,

In the summer unless you irrigate and use a lot of water you will not have much colour but there is usually enough rain and it is warm enough to have a lot of early spring flowers.
We have had daffodils, Fresias , verbena and other rockery type flowers in full bloom since the end of january.

We do irrigate and it is not cheap but the pleaseure we gain from the garden and the comments of those who stay with us are worth it.

If you want to see what an garden thet does not have any water looks like just look at the local scrubland in the summer.

[pato]

You can have bit of the best of both worlds,

In the summer unless you irrigate and use a lot of water you will not have much colour but there is usually enough rain and it is warm enough to have a lot of early spring flowers.
We have had daffodils, Fresias , verbena and other rockery type flowers in full bloom since the end of january.

We do irrigate and it is not cheap but the pleaseure we gain from the garden and the comments of those who stay with us are worth it.

If you want to see what an garden thet does not have any water looks like just look at the local scrubland in the summer.

Or Pato's garden.

[laserblazer]

If you want to see what an garden thet does not have any water looks like just look at the local scrubland in the summer

That's only the case if you don't do any weeding and clearing.

[Bruce Wallis]

Bruce do you have brass and a lot of thirsty plants? Did you get the irrigation installed and if so who do you recommend. you say high bill but is that all your water consumption? What is a typical annual charge?
glad the wife had some enjoyment this morning.

I cant tell you what the installation cost of the system were. It was here when we bought the house, but we have extended it to its limits.
We have a large garden, front back and side. The irrigation is programmed over the 3 areas.

We have grass front and back, several trees, and quite alot of planting, in 3 main beds.

In the winter, we dont run the irrigation system at all, it basically runs June-October, twice a day July and August.
Water bill when system not running, about 10 euros a month. In high season, up to 200 euros a month.
Overall our water bill over 1000 Euros a year.

It's scary.....but we love our garden....some people waste money on golf courses, we do it on the garden

[LICY]

Irrigation is expensive to install and the running costs are high. Pato's comments are valid and you need to keep a constant eye on which plants get the precious water.

If I could have planned our garden from scratch I would have disregarded the lawn and the water thirsty plants and got a landscape gardener to design a Southern European garden which is used to the arrid conditions.

We certainly do need to consider the less thirsty plants but do want some colour too. without grass I presume we will save a lot on water. really need advice what flowering plants should I consider. we saw one little low cover deep orange plant. I would say it must be a succulent because of the leaves so I do wonder if that type of plant could be watered less frequently. LICY