This page attempts both. First the situation, as plainly as possible and with a date on it. Then what genuinely makes a difference.<\/p>\n
Where the water actually stands<\/h2>\n
As of July 2026<\/strong>, according to the Balearic water authority:<\/p>\n For the south-east this is not an abstract statistic. Migjorn<\/strong> covers Santany\u00ed, Ses Salines and Campos. Manacor-Felanitx<\/strong> covers Felanitx, Portocolom and Cala Murada. Both moved into alert in July. That is the area we have worked in since 2008 and where most of our gardens stand.<\/p>\n Current figures are published monthly by the authority on the Balearic water portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n The island is divided into seven demand units<\/em>, each with its own groundwater body and its own index: normal, pre-alert, alert, emergency. Municipal measures follow from that classification.<\/p>\n One detail matters and is barely known: the step back down is deliberately slow.<\/strong> A unit leaves alert status only after at least sixty days of better readings, and pre-alert only after three months back in the normal range. A wet October therefore does not lift the classification. Anyone planning now should expect this to shape the next few years, not the next few weeks.<\/p>\n There is no island-wide ban.<\/strong> Restrictions are municipal and follow the classification of each supply unit \u2014 what one town hall forbids may be permitted in the next.<\/p>\n Esporles<\/strong> is the clearest case: since July 2026 the municipal ordinance prohibits filling or topping up pools from the mains and watering gardens with mains water<\/strong>. Treated water is expressly still allowed. S\u00f3ller<\/strong> and Dei\u00e0<\/strong> have repeatedly issued comparable measures in recent years, in Dei\u00e0 at times going as far as cutting supply on several days a week.<\/p>\n Breaches can be penalised under the relevant municipal ordinance. More important than the fine, though, is the direction of travel. These ordinances are not going to disappear. They are becoming the norm.<\/p>\n The wrong response is to go without. A garden that never gets made for fear of the water costs you the value it would have added to the house \u2014 and the ground does not turn into gravel either way.<\/p>\n A garden that needs little water is not a reduced garden. It is a different garden.<\/strong> It does not look like an English lawn with drought damage; it looks like what grows here of its own accord \u2014 and in August it looks better than the irrigated garden next door, because it is not working against the climate.<\/p>\n 1. The choice of plants matters more than the technology.<\/strong> Rosemary, cistus, perovskia, juniper, ornamental grasses, tulbaghia \u2014 species for which the Mallorcan summer is the normal state of affairs rather than an emergency. By the third year they need almost nothing. Everything else can only be cushioned by technology, not solved by it.<\/p>\n 2. Lawn: small, and for a reason.<\/strong> Where a lawn is wanted we recommend bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon<\/em>, known in Mallorca as “grama”)<\/strong>. In prolonged drought it goes dormant and turns brown \u2014 but does not die<\/strong> \u2014 and greens up again with the first water. What matters is the area: as large as the children need it, not as large as the plot allows.<\/p>\n 3. Mulch.<\/strong> Open ground loses water to the air before the root ever sees it. We cover with almond shell<\/strong>: a regional by-product that holds moisture, lets the soil breathe rather than compacting it, and makes the colours of the planting stand out.<\/p>\n 4. Drip irrigation with hydrozones.<\/strong> No sprinklers over beds. Every emitter sits at the plant it serves, and plants with similar needs share a circuit. A circuit feeding an olive and a hydrangea together drowns one and starves the other.<\/p>\n 5. A controller that reads the weather.<\/strong> We work with Hunter Hydrawise<\/a>: the system draws data from the nearest weather stations, calculates real evaporation, and skips the cycle after rain. It also detects a burst pipe from the flow rate \u2014 which, in a house standing empty for months, is the difference between one failed emitter and an empty cistern.<\/p>\n 6. Cistern and treated water.<\/strong> Where a town hall prohibits irrigation from the mains, treated water generally remains permitted. A tank under the terrace is a small item on a new build \u2014 and in five years it may be the condition on which the garden can be watered at all.<\/p>\n Gravel instead of plants.<\/strong> A bare gravel surface saves water and costs everything else: it heats up, radiates that warmth back at the house in the evening, and looks good in no month of the year. Saving water does not mean leaving out the planting. It means choosing the right planting.<\/p>\n Frequent short watering.<\/strong> Ten minutes a day keeps the moisture in the top few centimetres and trains the plant to root shallowly. Watering less often and for longer drives roots down, to where the ground still holds moisture in August.<\/p>\n Watering at midday.<\/strong> A substantial part evaporates before it arrives. The system runs in the early hours.<\/p>\n Most of the gardens we assess do not use too much water because too little equipment was installed, but because nobody ever adjusted the system to the garden: one programme for every circuit, emitters sitting beside the plant that has since grown away from them, a valve that stopped closing two years ago.<\/p>\n We look at existing systems and tell you what can be changed for a reasonable outlay and what needs replacing. Often the largest saving lies not in new equipment but in replanting three beds and redistributing the circuits.<\/p>\n What a garden of this kind actually looks like is set out under Mediterranean garden<\/a>. The technology behind it under irrigation<\/a>. Paths, steps and walls under Mallorcan natural stone<\/a>.<\/p>\n How a garden is built to come through a Mallorcan summer on very little water \u2014 the planting, the lawn question and the ground cover \u2014 is set out under drought-tolerant gardens<\/a>.<\/p>\n New build or existing garden \u2014 we will come and see the site and tell you what is possible there, and on how much water. J&P Design, based in Santany\u00ed since 2008, in the middle of the Migjorn unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Water and Gardens in Mallorca Anyone who owns a house with a garden in Mallorca has been hearing about this for years. Usually as an August headline, rarely with figures,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1819","page","type-page","status-publish"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n
What “alert” means \u2014 and why it stays<\/h2>\n
What is already prohibited<\/h2>\n
What follows from this for a garden<\/h2>\n
![\"Mediterranean](\"https:\/\/www.designmallorca.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mediterraner-garten-mallorca-graeser-kies-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure>\nWhat genuinely helps<\/h2>\n
![\"Newly](\"https:\/\/www.designmallorca.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tropfbewaesserung-neuanlage-garten-mallorca-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure>\nWhat does not help<\/h2>\n
And if the garden already exists<\/h2>\n
![\"Drought-tolerant](\"https:\/\/www.designmallorca.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trockenheitsvertraeglicher-garten-mallorca-graeser-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure>\nMore on this<\/h2>\n
Let us look at your garden<\/h2>\n