Ah the joy of the grey water planter! You have a shower, do a load of washing or the dishes, and all that lovely dirty water swills down the drain to your indoor botanical cell, running through gravel, plant roots and peat moss until it collects, pretty much cleansed of odour and gack, in a small well to be pumped into your toilet cistern instead of using perfectly good, precious in fact, drinking water to flush.
That is the theory anyway. We have been having a little bit of trouble with our planter. The water doesn't flow as serenely as it ought and we are ending up with very wet soil, an overflowing entry point and only just enough water for the toilet. Somewhere, something is slowing things down a bit too much. Not a disaster but a bit of a bother.
We are absolutely loathe to dig the whole planter up - the plants as you can see are gorgeous, lush, healthy, flowering, fabulous. But I have the sneaking suspicion that we put too much sand and soil on top and it is somehow getting down into the gravel and clogging the planter. Argh.
Any suggestions?