Growing up in the countryside of New Jersey, watering the garden was never something we gave much thought to. Sprinklers were more of a summertime toy—something for kids to run through—than a tool for sustaining plant life. Back then, water seemed endless.
Now, I live in the northwest corner of the state, surrounded by rivers, lakes, and mountains. One river even forks and flows around my backyard, while an old canal cuts straight through the property. It looks like a water-rich paradise—but appearances can be deceiving. Despite all this, we’ve experienced some of the worst droughts in our region’s history.
This contradiction was a wake-up call. It made me realize just how fragile our relationship with water really is. In places like California, long-term drought and strict water restrictions have already become part of daily life. People have been forced to let go of lush lawns and rethink their approach to gardening. Slowly but surely, I began to do the same.
At first, I tried the popular rain barrel. You’ll find them in nearly every garden supply catalog, and they feel like a noble, eco-conscious step. But in reality, a single 55-gallon barrel is emptied in a flash. For comparison, one inch of rain on a 1,000-square-foot roof yields about 750 gallons of water—so a little barrel barely scratches the surface.
I’ve never watered my lawn. Frankly, I wouldn’t dream of it. Turf grass can handle drought by going dormant—it’s nature’s way of coping. Of course, my lawn looks nothing like a golf course. It’s a patchwork of whatever can survive mowing. Many of the plants in my lawn are the very ones people buy herbicides to eliminate. I keep my mower blades high and leave the clippings on the ground to break down and feed the soil naturally.
Soil is everything in a drought. Much of my property is sandy floodplain, where water drains away faster than you can pour it. That’s why I’m constantly adding organic matter—mainly compost—every spring and whenever I plant something new. The soil devours it. And so, I add more.
To conserve moisture, I mulch—religiously. Even my gravel garden gets a layer of crushed stone, about one to three inches thick, to protect the soil and regulate temperature. In other beds, I rely on shredded leaves. Sometimes I’ll put down a layer of wet cardboard to smother weeds, then cover that with wood chips or leaf mulch. It’s low-cost, practical, and surprisingly effective.
I’ve also avoided using solid concrete or asphalt in hardscaping. My driveway is gravel, not paved, to let water seep into the ground. Where I use stone, it’s set in sand, not mortar.
When it comes to watering, I favor precision over volume. Instead of spraying from above—which leads to significant evaporation—I’ve installed buried soaker hoses in my garden beds. These hoses, made from recycled tires, gently weep water right into the soil, targeting plant roots directly without disturbing the foliage or compacting the soil.
I usually install the hoses in warm weather when they’re more pliable and easy to work with. If you’re dealing with sandy soil, space them closer together—around 12 to 18 inches. In clay, you can go wider. Plastic pegs help secure the layout, and I always keep a repair kit on hand in case I nick a hose while planting.
I’ve also embraced low-tech, low-cost solutions. My friend Joanna, a long-time gardener in Vermont, showed me how to use old milk jugs to create a slow-drip irrigation system. Just fill the jug with water, screw the cap back on, then punch one or two tiny holes in the bottom. Tuck it next to the base of a plant that needs extra care, and it’ll deliver moisture slowly over time. It’s not glamorous, but it works beautifully.
Plant selection matters, too. Over the years, I’ve come to rely more on native species—the plants that already know how to survive the region’s unpredictable swings between rain and drought. Sugar maples and shagbark hickories, both native to this part of the country, line the outer edges of my property. They were carefully watered in their first year and have never needed extra attention since. During those early days, I even used tree watering bags—those green, zip-up reservoirs that release water slowly over the course of a week.
In the nooks and stone crevices around the garden, I’ve tucked in hardy rock-loving plants like Sempervivum and sedums. They thrive with minimal care, soaking up sun and surviving on almost no water. A neighbor, Chris, helped me build a 72-foot dry-stacked stone wall to border the gravel garden. While he built, I slipped in young seedlings nestled in “socks” of soil—an old trick that gives roots a strong start. Even in the hottest, driest months, those plants hang on beautifully.
Drought isn’t the end of a garden. It’s an invitation to adapt. It’s a call to rethink what gardening means—not as a battle against the elements, but as a dialogue with them. Let the soil teach you. Let the plants teach you. And above all, let the garden teach you.
There’s something profoundly human about tending a garden through hardship. You learn to do more with less, to observe more closely, and to appreciate the quiet resilience of life under stress. A drought-tolerant garden might lack the lushness of a springtime meadow—but it glows with the wisdom of survival.