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| We live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains...pinion pines, juniper, yucca and cactus thrive here. But, with our lack of rain fall and dry summers, we started having serious browning and needle loss on our pinion pine trees a few years back.
These trees are our wind block in winter. In a desperate attempt to save them, hubby (a plumber) diverted our washing machine out flow water to a garden hose, that I could drag around the yard. This worked really well, and our pinion trees started looking better and surprised us by setting a large number of cones that year. Hubby figured that the washing machine uses 15 gallons of water per cycle, for a total of 30 gallons of water per load of laundry.
Does anyone else do this? What results are you getting with your roses? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| We did that in Miami in the late sixties (back when detergents contained a lot of phosphates) as the "soil" was sand and coral. Everything loved it, but drainage was exceptional and rainfall heavy and regular. As long as the drainage is good and there are occasional flushing of the detergents from the soil, I can imagine they would appreciate the extra irrigation. Of course you know to avoid chlorine bleach as much as possible. Too high a concentration can damage or kill any plant. I don't use the laundry water here because of stupid laws, but I would if I could! Kim |
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| We don't -- and it is still illegal here. But if we are rationed, we WILL do this. 90% of our garden is -- providentially -- downhill from the house. We already use our dishwater and all of our shower warm-up water. Jeri |
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| Hi Kim, Our soil is mostly sand and rock. It drains too fast. The only time I use bleach is for washing towels and sheets. Hubby set up the whole thing, so that I only have to turn turn a valve and I can choose to send the water to the septic tank or to the garden hose. Such a handy guy. I am trying to talk him into setting up the bathroom shower to drain directly into the garden. But that would require a bit of plumbing magic. |
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| Perfect! You're a lady after my own heart! Do what you need to get him to run the shower water out there, too. Why pay twice for what the same gallon can do? Kim |
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Fri, Jun 22, 12 at 0:11
| Kim, add the bathroom sink faucet to the shower drain line and then you can wash the garden dirt off your hands and put it right back where it came from! |
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- Posted by karl_bapst_rosenut 5a, NW Indiana (rosenut@rosenut.com) on Fri, Jun 22, 12 at 0:22
| I run laundry and shower water onto my roses, have for three years now. Works great and have noticed no adverse affects. Did it out of necessity. That or new septic system. Septic's fine now. On advice if my septic guy, I also ran water softener brine underground to a parking area where it won't harm anything and stays out of the septic. |
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| Because of the age of the house, we're still on septic, only one of four on this hill which are. I had to divert the laundry to a sump out of necessity, too. The septic is amazing, having only required pumping once in the past thirty years. The house was copper repiped two years ago and everything is low-flow. Synthetic fibers combined with low-flow and the angle of the main drain led to continual clogs which had to be professionally unclogged. No drain opening chemicals work on synthetic fibers and they were the culprit (bloody pet beds!), even with a strainer on the laundry outlet. Once it was diverted into its own sump, no more clogs! Kim |
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| Living so far from away from town (in the boondocks) does have it's advantages. We have one of those big plastic laundry room sinks mounted against an outside wall. I got Hubby to fix it to drain into my bog garden. Water is getting expensive and I love that we can use it twice. All that good shower water, just running into the septic. I need to start bugging him again. Roseseek, Pantyhose makes a good strainer. |
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- Posted by greenhaven N Illinois 4b-5a (My Page) on Sun, Jun 24, 12 at 23:23
| This thread is very timely, given the drought conditions we are experiencing here in the Midwest. We are on a well, but I am very conscious of our water usage even when we don't have rainfall shortages. For the record, I would recommend using biodegradable laundry soaps if possible, when using laundry water in the garden. At least an 'environmentally-friendly' one. |
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| That they do, Kittylee. We use stainless steel strainers, but now it dumps into the ground, I don't bother straining it. Just let the fibers and water soak in and do their things. Thanks. Kim |
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| I don't know if my cheap laundry soap is hurting anything, but, when I dig, I have noticed a increase in the number of big, fat earthworms. I hope this means that the microbial things are happy. Roseseek, I figure the fibers act like mulch. Hubby (a professional plumber) says that all that laundry water is not good for the septic system. That it can over load the septic. I have never lived with a septic system before, but I am willing to do my part to help keep it happy. I keep looking for more ways to reuse our water. |
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- Posted by oceandweller 8B (My Page) on Mon, Aug 20, 12 at 16:56
| I currently use it here in Texas because of the drougt. The beds the water run into from the laundry look 10x better than those just watered with sprinklers. |
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| When we had a similar discussion on the Texas Forum I took a couple of pictures of our low tech system for diverting laundry water to the garden. Fortunately our washing machine is on a back wall so hubby just drilled a hole in the wall and connected the drain pipe to a couple of hoses from Lowe's. Arrow head vines in summer hide the area where the drain pipe emerges.
The two hoses can be connected or not, and moved around to direct water to different sections of the yard. We've been doing this for about 10 or 12 years and the plants including roses have flourished. I don't use chlorine bleach preferring the enzyme type instead. Also I don't mind using the two rinse option knowing that the water is going to the plants; plus it dilutes the detergent somewhat. Our soil is fast draining. Incidentally, after reading an article on the subject I've been using about half of the recommended amount of laundry detergent with good results. I saw the over use of detergents demonstrated while buying used washing machine tubs to recycle as planters ($5.00 :-) I noticed one that had gobs of scum on the outside. Most of the white or grey enamel tubs were clean. The appliance guy said it was from using too much detergent. Hope this helps. I just wish it would be as easy, and legal, to use bath water as it is laundry water. |
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| I haven't tried using laundry water yet, but I do have a really handy book for gardening in my area that discusses it. The book is "Care and Maintenance of Southern California Native Plant Gardens", 2006, by Bart O'Brien, Betsey Landis, and Ellen Mackey, ISBN 0-9605808-4-0. On page 27 there is a section on water quality, and it has this to say about greywater (keeping in mind they are not talking specifically roses, although there are CA native roses): "Greywater is not recommended for native plants, Natives are accustomed to nutrient poor soils, and greywater tends to be nutrient-rich, Greywater is usually alkaline due to the addition of soap, Greywater ties up iron and zinc in forms unavailable to plants, and increases levels of sodium, boron, and chlorine that are toxic to plants, If you use greywater, choose laundry detergents and soaps formulated for greywater systems that lack sodium, boron, and chlorine, Periodically check the soil pH and make adjustments if necessary......" Melissa |
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| Hey Guys, I was thinking about getting my husband to do this since I've seen so many of ya'll talking about it and he said that the soap in the detergent would cause the ground to dry out he thought.Has anyone doing this experienced this problem? |
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| CAN ANYONE ANSWER THE ABOVE QUESTION PLEASE? I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT, THANKS |
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| What a great idea to capture shower warm-up water! I'm going to start doing that. I already capture kitchen faucet warm-up/cool-down water in a large container and use that on potted plants. |
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| hi these ideas are great, but do be aware that if you have to soften your water you will be adding salts to the soil. roseberri |
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| cause the ground to dry out he thought. My thought would be not so much making the ground dry out as making the soil less able to absorb moisture due to an increase in various minerals, mineral salts, calcium carbonate...something like that on the surface of the soil. Probably be able to counteract that with regular addition of an organic mulch such as compost to increase microbial action. Also you Alana in SC which normally gets a decent amount of rainfall--the "soft" rain is going to quickly move the minerals down below the rootzone of the plants. To me a lot more concern for an area that gets 2" of rain per year than one that gets a lavish 30" or more... |
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| Thanks soo much hoovb for taking care of that question for me, I started using hardwood mulch ( I use to use red) that should be good right? One last question and I'll be done, would using this water be safe to use on newly planted bands and/or potted bands?I'm thinking not on the potted but fine on the ones in the ground, but wanna be sure. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped me. Alana |
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| IF you are going to use greywater, I'd be very cautious about what detergent you use, and I don't think I'd be using a lot of other chemicals. (I love OxiClean, but I would research it before using water containing it.) Alana, I would probably choose not to use it on baby plants. Jeri |
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| HI Jeri, Thanks I won't use it on the baby's and I am researching the ingredients, I emailed them last night for a complete list of ingredients :) thanks Alana
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