If you've been using municipal or well water to irrigate your plants, you've already been giving them high doses of salt.
While chlorine is not good for plants, the concentrations in pool water will not be dangerous for your plants - it'll just bind with other minerals (mostly calcium) to create more salts.
My advice would be to use passive rainwater harvesting techniques (berms, swales, and french drains) for your landscape, which is a good idea even if you don't have a pool. When it's backwash time, place the end of the hose at the highest point of your yard, and let gravity feed the water throughout the landscape. If you can plan the backwash a few days before a rain (I know that can be difficult here!), that would be helpful, because the rainwater will help flush the salts farther into the soil - hopefully beneath the reach of the roots of your plants.
One way to guarantee a good deep watering after using the pool water is to install an active rainwater system (storing it in a tank). I you want any advice on either passive or active rainwater harvesting, feel free to ask.
BTW - in some jurisdictions, it's illegal to not keep the water on your property. When we first moved back to Arizona a few years ago, we rented a house with a pool in Chandler. I discovered it was illegal to run the hose onto the street. Of course, that didn't keep me from seeing wet streets on numerous after-dark dog walks!
Oh - one more thing to think about - if you do use french drains on your property, make sure they are covered with a filter fabric. Backwash water is, after all, very dirty, and it will fill a gravel trench with silt sooner than you'd like.
ours is a salt pool. the water goes on the grapes and dwarf myrtles and does not hurt them. when you put the salt in the watr, it eventually turns to chlorine, it's not just salt water. i dunno how it does it, Steve would know. [hubby]
We were thinking of some way to get the backwash water into a rain barrell and let it sit so the chlorine evaporates, then let it out into the orchard. I try to fill pots etc with water when I'm watering so next time I have chlorine free water for the garden/plants. Although we have not put ideas into action yet.....
thanks Monica...so, no filter or anything? do you have a picture of what "flooring your orchard" is? thanks.
Monica > Michael and Lylah LednerDecember 18, 2009 at 7:18pm
How funny, that was a typo! I meant "flooding", but didn't see your reply until now. Next time we flood, I will take photos for the fun of it!
What did you decide to do? I like the idea of letting the water sit until the chlorine evaporates. We are not sophisticated enough yet to get something like going but it something to work toward.
Replies
While chlorine is not good for plants, the concentrations in pool water will not be dangerous for your plants - it'll just bind with other minerals (mostly calcium) to create more salts.
My advice would be to use passive rainwater harvesting techniques (berms, swales, and french drains) for your landscape, which is a good idea even if you don't have a pool. When it's backwash time, place the end of the hose at the highest point of your yard, and let gravity feed the water throughout the landscape. If you can plan the backwash a few days before a rain (I know that can be difficult here!), that would be helpful, because the rainwater will help flush the salts farther into the soil - hopefully beneath the reach of the roots of your plants.
One way to guarantee a good deep watering after using the pool water is to install an active rainwater system (storing it in a tank). I you want any advice on either passive or active rainwater harvesting, feel free to ask.
BTW - in some jurisdictions, it's illegal to not keep the water on your property. When we first moved back to Arizona a few years ago, we rented a house with a pool in Chandler. I discovered it was illegal to run the hose onto the street. Of course, that didn't keep me from seeing wet streets on numerous after-dark dog walks!
Oh - one more thing to think about - if you do use french drains on your property, make sure they are covered with a filter fabric. Backwash water is, after all, very dirty, and it will fill a gravel trench with silt sooner than you'd like.
I asked around and the general consensus is that chlorine is OK, salt is NO WAY. It certainly hasn't seemed to hurt our little trees.
What did you decide to do? I like the idea of letting the water sit until the chlorine evaporates. We are not sophisticated enough yet to get something like going but it something to work toward.