Ritamax, the basic difference between watering plants in the Mediterranean and in Basel (as well as in Oslo) is that water is scarce in the first region, and should not be wasted. As John J just wrote: ‘it is not only advisable but imperative that ways are found, by whatever means, to reduce the amount of water used to irrigate private gardens’.
During the first few years at our house in Greece we had plenty of good quality public water, but slowly new houses were built along the beach, all of them with big gardens, lawns and thirsty plants, and the water supply rapidly diminished, a major reason was that those having houses below us were using a lot of water on irrigation. Around ten years ago there was hardly any water in our taps in the summer, not even at night, and the water was no longer potable. Our house is about 40 m higher up, and we were told that we could not expect the water pressure to be high enough to reach such extreme altitude! (We are 200 m from the beach.) We were finally saved by our neighbour, who had to drill for water since he has a small hotel; he lets us use water from his well, but we can’t waste it. Since we are not there most of the time, we had to choose plants that would survive with minimal watering, but slowly we have managed to create a green zone around the house. We have also tried to protect the wild bushes along the fence as much as possible, and I see from the photo on Google maps that we have succeeded. But the main thing is that my own attitude has changed, slowly I have begun to look at the natural changes in the landscape in a different way, dry and brown is not necessarily ugly, as long as it is part of the plants’ natural cycle..
We have some friends nearby who look after our house when we are not there, and they also water some of the plants, but they are getting older and they suggested I should install some automatic watering system which would reduce the need for lugging a watering can around the place. So I did this summer, and it works quite well, but accidentally I found out how much water is consumed each time I put it on, (the neighbour’s water pipe was broken, so we used water from a water tank we use as an emergency reservoir, and it was easy to measure). I was shocked to see that 300 l of water was used in one hour, although the drips had been regulated to a minimum. This information was useful, next year I will reduce the watering time considerably.