JAI BAIDELL

Genre: Nonfiction Published: 2015 Date read: March 2018 I’m a real sucker for luscious illustrated books on landscape design, and I feasted on this one for days. The book explores new ways to manage urban water. Instead of trying to get rid of water as quickly as possible through underwater drains, this book shows how many cities and towns in France have instead brought the water back into the landscape with ponds, swales, ditches and overflow ponds. Flood waters are allowed to spread naturally and sink into the sponge as part of the water management system, rather than be seen as a problem. Descriptive text is provided in French and English. I didn’t understand the importance of this idea until I saw a television program about climate change in Europe. Over the next fifty years, cities are planning for record floods as ice and snow cover and glaciers disappear. Too much water is an imminent threat. From an Australian perspective, we are worrying more about extended heat

This is going to be fun! First a deconstruction. Cootamundra -- thick clay soil, relatively low rainfall in the 500 to 600mm per annum range, frosty winters, baking hot summers over 40 degrees C. Like the extremes of Canberra only at lower altitude. And our new garden, built by people who loved perennial flowers. Hmmm. My basic philosophy is, water when establishing plants or during periods of extreme heat or dryness. Other than that, they're on their own. Instead, my predecessors installed a spray irrigation system and used it often. This means the plants are used to regular water and have shallow roots. I'm ruthless, though. If they can't survive a couple of weeks or even a month of dry they can go ahead and die. Lots of them will. For example, the camellias and azaleas, planted on a north facing fence in full sun. A big ask. They're doomed. And the soil looks bad, these poor little things can't even access the iron in there if those yellow leaves are any