Watering The Trees With Recycled Water

I tackled the chore of draining my hot tub today. I have 11 weeks worth of water (at 50 gallons a week) in my water tanks so I thought this would be a good time to water the trees and clean out the hot tub. I'll refill it again when the monsoon rains start which should be in the next few weeks. We only get 12" of rain a year, on a good year, and most of it falls July-September.


There weren't too many critters under the hot tub cover. Just a few unfortunate lizards and one of these giant desert centipedes. He was about 7 inches long.

I'll wait for the rest of the water to dry up and then go clean out the bottom. It was only 90 degrees out there but it seemed hotter in the sun. I had to go inside for a while and get something cold to drink.


I used the hot tub water for my baby mesquite tree. I transplanted one little aloe plant last year to see if it could survive and so far it is still alive. I want the aloes to grow around the bottom of the tree like the aloes around my desert willow tree. They shade the ground and keep the soil from drying out.

Below is my desert ironwood tree. It is a slow grower but it doesn't mind full sun and no water. And none of the critters like to eat it, a very good thing for a desert plant. Someday, when it gets bigger, it will have pretty purple flowers.

My desert willow is doing great. The aloes are keeping it cool and keep the water from evaporating too fast. I have lots of aloes around the property. They get brown and crispy in the summer. The ones around the bottom of the willow are looking happy since I give them water once a week.
In a few months, after the monsoons, the aloes will look like this again. All green and very happy.

My Mexican Bird of Paradise is not looking good at all. They grew wonderfully in the backyard of my rental house with a drip system and no predators. Out here in the open desert it has struggled. Every time it tries to send out flowers something eats it. It should be 15 feet tall by now.

So, all of my trees have been watered. It felt so luxurious to have running water from the hose. It's funny how we forget about little luxuries like running water when it is at out finger tips. Some day when I figure out where my house is going to be, I'll have a grey water system that waters my plants for me and a larger rainwater collection system so that I have excess when I need it to water my trees or even...do I dare? wash my car? Now that would be a luxury. :)