[ Australia is facing the worst drought in recorded history, and as part of the response the government is targeting home gardeners. Beth Spencer questions if this is really the best place to begin water restrictions. -Adam ]

Dealing with stage 3 water restrictions so early in the season, and faced with even tougher ones in the coming months, I am reminded of a cartoon that had a huge impact on me as a child.

It was about a little girl, stuck indoors on a wet day, gazing out the window and wishing that the rain would go away forever. In true cartoon fashion, she got her wish. The rain stopped, and so did the water that had always gushed freely out of her tap. She gasped in panic as she squeezed the last few drops into a glass and was about to drink it when she noticed a flower outside, wilting in the sun, ready to keel over. She raced to rescue the flower but before she got there she tripped and the last of the precious water spilt, instantly being absorbed and evaporated by the thirsty earth.

Recently Sharon Beder, writing in The Age, pointed out the inherent unfairness of using ability to pay as an indicator of water-worthiness, but I wonder whether uniform and severe restrictions on everyone across the State — regardless of situation, type of outdoor usage or needs — is any more fair, or a better solution.

Gardens mean different things to different people. People in suburbs rich in parks and public spaces, for instance, may have less psychological, spiritual or therapeutic need for that little patch of daily-tended greenery.

And while someone who works long hours outside the home will probably feel the loss of their garden less than someone home all day with young children or with a disability, they are much more likely to be able to afford equipment to help bypass the restrictions. Automatic tap timers and watering systems, outdoor lighting so you can water late at night (hard to do in the country when your garden is pitch dark by 8 pm), tanks, pumps, and greywater storage systems all cost money, and often aren’t options for people who rent, or easily affordable to those who live on small incomes. (Not to mention high fences that might keep the occasional violation from the eyes of prying neighbours.)

Indeed, restricting outside usage of water seems to have been chosen not because watering your garden is in itself, or is necessarily, the most wanton use of water in our society at present, but simply because it is the only one that can be cheaply policed (by eliciting a charming and community building, deeply Australian, dob in your neighbours system).

Certainly, stopping all outside usage of water in private homes — which has happened already in some country areas, and is rumoured to be scheduled for introduction to most others by November — is a useful shock tactic to make us take water seriously, and may even help get us through this summer without running out. But is this kind of blanket prohibition useful in assisting us to make the type of changes required if we are to get through every summer from now on?

I’m all for telling people to give up their exotics and summer annuals, choose water-efficient and hardy plants, allow their lawns to die off and their gardens to be naturally browner and more muted. But even natives in a harsh season may need the occasional squirt to stay alive. And even well-mulched vegies need to be watered more often than twice a week.

Instead of encouraging people to garden differently, the restrictions this year seem to be encouraging people to abandon the idea of having a garden at all, and in the current climate, I’m not sure this is a good thing.

The significance of backyard gardens for greener, cleaner, more temperate cities and towns, and their function in harbouring and feeding the surprising amount of native wildlife that still lives amongst us is being increasingly recognised.

The bottlebrush in my garden that is still finding its feet in clay soil is not a luxury to the birds that feed from it, nor is the tiny pond a luxury to my local frog population. We could save a bit of water if we abandon these, but maybe in the long run we’d use even more water producing extra chemicals to control the insects that proliferate in their absence.

Biodiversity and the successful multi-use of small spaces takes time and care to establish, and often a judicious use of water to maintain. And I’d be hard pressed to believe that the salad that comes directly from my garden onto my plate uses as much water as the lettuce I drive to the supermarket to buy, produced as it is in large monocultural batches and watered by aerial spray or irrigation.

Indeed, when eighty percent of a nation’s fruit crop can be wiped out overnight by a bad frost or extreme weather event, is this really a good time to actively discourage people from tending their backyard fruit trees and vegie patches? Could we instead perhaps educate and encourage each other towards permaculture and water efficiency by more diverse and varied restrictions?

Gardening is also becoming an important tool in educating children towards good nutritional habits through the experience of growing and cooking their own food. Stephanie Alexander’s project at Collingwood, as described in her recent book, is just one example that it would be a pity to see halted.

For the girl in the cartoon from my childhood, the wilting flower was a life that needed to be saved. Her dilemma, how best to use those last few precious drops of water, seems to me to strike at the heart of what is happening for us.

In the contemporary world, we make choices every day, countless times over and over, about what is valuable, what is precious, what should live and what should be allowed to die, even when we don’t realise that we are doing this. For every choice we make about what and how we consume has effects.

Whether it’s choosing to sacrifice the two-hundred year old redgums on the Murray that are dying because we choose to wear water-greedy cotton instead of hemp, or a rainforest in another country so we can eat cheap beef burgers, or our own forests so we can toss away the paper carton the burger comes in, or the plants in our backyard and the creatures that feed on them so we can have long showers and keep our hair squeaky clean.

The water authorities have decided that commercial practices are to continue unrestricted, but that gardens – and the beauty, peace, wildlife, healing and food they bring – are a luxury we can do without. But like the little girl in the cartoon, I’m not so sure.

email your feedback or comments

Some useful links:
(thanks to those who sent these in)

Regarding the use of veggie gardens in schools to teach children about nutrition: http://www.theage.com.au/news/epicure/children-learning-as-they-grow/2006/10/02/1159641238776.html

Teachers for Forests website has a great page of links about water politics and policies: http://www.teachers.forests.org.au/waternatnews.html

Permablitz
www.permablitz.net

Eat the Suburbs! website
www.eatthesuburbs.org

Energy Bulletin
www.energybulletin.net

Len’s Gardening Page – lots of advice and info on permaculture and organic gardening
http://www.gardenlen.com/

Centre For Research and Education in Environmental Strategies (CERES)
www.ceres.org.au

David Holmgren’s article, ‘Garden Agriculture: A revolution in. efficient water use’
http://www.holmgren.com.au/DLFiles/PDFs/WaterJournalOpWeb.pdf

and a great description of ‘Luscious Lane‘, a communal garden in the inner city Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, sent in by Glenda Lindsay

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Beth Spencer is an essayist, writer of fiction, and radio producer. Check out www.DogMedia.com.au and www.BethSpencer.com

An edited version of this piece was published in The Age, Opinion, 19th October 2006 as ‘Healthy gardens are just the start for a healthy community’

David Holmgren recently estimated that for the amount of water used in the production of milk products per dollar value on his property was around 1/300th that of commercial agriculture (those figures from memory).