I’m not one who is really big on the whole dividing the world into a butch/femme dichotomy. I prefer to think of it as people who have a valuable contribution to make in the construction of reticulation systems, and those of us who have an excellent appreciation of those who have a valuable contribution to make in the construction of said systems. Especially when observed from the sunburn-free side of the house windows. Ahhh friends, how much one appreciates thee…

Some people are skilled in the art of reticulation, others, like myself have no idea how to wrestle many metres of hosepipe. So when a delightful trio of practical, efficient and quite fetching women friends turned up to lay my new weeping hose retic and mulch my whole garden I was saved from swooning only by their observation that they would rather spend several hours in the blazing sun installing my retic than listen to me talk about it again. I retreated somewhat huffily inside, to my favourite armchair, where I could have my cup of tea and smirk in peace.

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My garden and I have spent several summers together now. The first was relatively civilised, with the pre-existing sprinkler based retic on a timer and a bit of mulch working relatively well. Due to a plumber ‘fixing’ the system the following spring, the sprinklers did a great job of watering a dinner-plate sized piece of lawn. My somewhat erratic manual dragging of a sprinkler around on watering days, hand watering and lots of mulch was not as successful. The mulch repelled water quite well, and bred voracious slaters even more effectively. Probably the only real winners were the people who got a second shower walking past my sprinklers to the bus.

But this year – the year of little rain, when this neglectful garden mother bolts from air-conditioned car to house muttering ‘you’re on your own, kids’ – has seen unprecedented summer growth. The thick mulch cover and well designed and laid weeping hose have resulted in the plants looking better than ever, on less water. Particularly the larger plants that were planted to provide some structure and a more salubrious micro-climate are benefiting from the deep, slow watering. I can’t recommend weeping hoses, mulch and a bunch of butches highly enough.

These post- Christmas months I’m finding that new plants are just getting crispy fried, so I have been concentrating instead on building soil structure, putting time into learning more and making Grand Plans.

If, like me, you’re looking for inspiration, there’s plenty on for gardeners:

Monty Don, of BBC Gardeners’ World and Around the World in 80 Gardens fame is appearing as part of Perth International Arts Festival. See www.perthfestival.com.au

Great Gardens run free garden workshops for WA gardeners to encourage sustainability for more info, www.greatgardens.info

Zoe Carter