RAINFALL:AN AD campaign advising the public not to use garden hoses is continuing, despite the ongoing rain and recent flooding.
The eye-catching advertisements feature a photo of a sponge with a garden placed on top of it and a hose sprinkling water on the garden.
"Hosing your lawn for one hour uses 500 litres of water," runs the text. "Water is precious. Let's conserve it."
A radio ad has also been aired in the past week. A letter-writer to The Irish Timesthis week wondered: "Did I really hear during an ad break on RTÉ Radio One yesterday a plea to conserve water and in particular a request to avoid the use of garden hoses?"
The writer, Bill Ryan from Co Clare, went on: "Perhaps some of your readers might also have heard this as they forlornly look out and see flower pots, garden furniture etc floating past their front door."
The campaign, a co-operative project by the Dublin Region Local Authorities, is co-ordinated by Dublin City Council.
"The focus of the campaign this year is water wastage arising as a result of using the garden hose," the council's website states.
The campaign has been running since early summer and ends next week.
Lisa Fields, press officer with Dublin City Council, accepted that people were probably not using their hoses at present: "I'm sure at the present time people are not using garden hoses. But at the time of booking and creating these ads, the type of weather we are experiencing at present was not predicted. The main point of these ads is to inform people of the overall need to conserve water."
The council would not reveal the overall cost of the campaign or how much they had paid to buy advertising space. The ads could not be altered at this stage, said Fields, but they could be swapped.
An alternative advertisement, also part of the present campaign by the Publisis QMP agency, and titled Cats and Dogs, is designed to have more relevance in wet weather. It shows a photograph of falling cats and dogs, with the line, "Even with our weather, water is precious. Let's conserve it."
This ad may feature more prominently in future campaigns. "The current campaign ends this week," said Fields. "At this stage we don't know if the hose ads will be replaced with the Cats and Dogs ads."
However, Irish Timesgardening columnist Jane Powers says that despite the rain, gardeners may still need to use a hose.
"Even in very wet weather, plants in pots sometimes need watering - especially plants with foliage - because the foliage sucks up a lot of water and also acts as an umbrella. And if we do hit a dry patch, certain plants such as vegetables should be watered and they should be watered with a hose."
Most other plants would not need watering, said Powers, and lawns never need hosing. However, plants such as a newly planted tree or shrub that sits in "rain shadow" - where a wall or building keeps water from it - may also need extra water.
