Drought-Proofing Your Garden: Essential Water-Saving Strategies and Plant List

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By Janet Marinelli and Niall Dunne on August 1, 2002

Improve potting mixes.
For your container plants, consider incorporating hydrogels into the potting soil. These water-retaining polymers hold several hundred times their weight in water and release it gradually to the plants' roots. Be careful not to add more than the recommended amount—too much of a good thing and your plants will be pushed out of their containers by the expanding crystals. Presoaking hydrogels until they are fully expanded makes them easier to incorporate with the potting soil in the proper ratio.

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