This spring let your garden “Grow without the Flow”

The nation's favourite gardener, Charlie Dimmock, has rolled up her sleeves and is backing the region's biggest ever campaign to cut water waste in the garden.

For the second year running Charlie has teamed up with Portsmouth Water, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and eight other water companies across the South of England and East Anglia to help green-fingered enthusiasts make their gardens thrive without wasting millions of litres of water.

Charlie said: “Gardens can be fit and healthy without lots of water. Often using water too much can do plants more harm than good as well as wasting this important natural resource.”

As the gardening season gets into full swing, the “Grow without the flow” campaign is being launched in B&Q stores across the South and East Anglia to encourage gardeners to follow Charlie's advice about the right way to water their gardens.

To help, a guide packed with gardening tips, water conservation ideas and special offers, including 2 for 1 entry to RHS gardens and the chance to win a garden consultation with an RHS expert, is being handed out at all participating stores from Sunday, April 10, for two weeks.

It comes as we move out of one of the driest winters since records began in 1892. Only half the normal amount of rainfall fell over the winter months leaving water sources lower than average for the time of year.

Normally, garden watering makes up about six per cent of water use but on hot days it can soar to about 70 per cent. This mainly due to garden sprinklers, which use as much water in an hour as a family of four does in a day.

The Environment Agency, B&Q and the Royal Horticultural Society are also backing the campaign in a bid to arm people with enough information to encourage them to be water wise in the garden as well as in the home.

Portsmouth Water's Technical Director, Andy Neve, says "Many of us take great pleasure from our gardens and throughout the year. If we are all 'water wise' by choosing drought resistant plants, watering from a water butt with a can or a hosepipe with a hand trigger, and watering on alternate days early in the morning or late in the evening, then we can still have a beautiful garden. At the same time we can ensure that there is still enough water for the environment and as an added bonus we can save ourselves time too!"

Nick Berry from the Environment Agency said: “It's very easy to use water wisely, particularly in the garden where your plants can benefit from the ‘less is more' approach to watering. By following Charlie's advice, we can all have beautiful, blooming gardens – no matter how much rainfall we have.”

Participating stores in Portsmouth Water's area include: Bognor Regis, Portsmouth , Fareham and Havant.