In warm areas, winter is the best time for transplanting... giving the plant time to build a good root system, and yours will need it due to the drought! I'd mulch the poor thing too! Can you water with 'brown' water? I was in some bad bad droughts in Northern California during the 70's and we had to water our plants with our bathwater and dish water, course we could only take a bath once a week! :o(
Us kids had to go swimming in the rivers.

Thanks Heathen. Will get the job done immediately. We are allowed to use grey water, but it's not good to use it on things you intend to eat later, and dishwater has residues of oils and grease etc that ruin the soil. I put a couple of empty buckets in my shower recess and it's surprising how much water can be collected that way.

I wouldn't put any plant in the ground during a drought unless I absolutely had to because the surrounding ground will be dry and you'll need a lot of extra water to keep it alive and develop a good root system, and that can't happen in a drought. Is there any chance you can keep the Vitex in it's container until the drought ends?

PS: Our US pioneer elders mostly watered with grey water and it didn't seem to hurt either them or their plants. I guess you use what you have. I don't envy you your drought situation at all.... ours just ended with this past winter's rains.

Actually, because of our fierce summer heat, I find that plants in the garden do much better than the potted ones, which dry out incredibly quickly. We get a lot of what they call 'sea breezes' here, but I call them 'gale-force winds'. I use a heavy layer of mulch over all the garden, and that stops a lot of evaporation. I plan on getting my young helper to hammer in some lengths of pipe deep down. I'll water into the pipe, instead of onto the soil surface, and that way the water will reach the roots and encourage plants to send roots further down where it's more moist anyway.

Good Idea with the pipe! I've been thinking of doing something similar to some of my bigger plants/trees. This summer with it's high temps and drying winds has been hard on a lot of plants, and I see a deffinite need to do some things differently. We have 4 Vitex trees and they wilt if they don't have enough deep water.

May I ask how you get the pipe deep enough? How long? What kind?

I'm hoping to get offcuts of metal piping, which will take a fair bit of hammering, and I intend to try and get them as far down into the soil as possible - up to a metre, but it will probably be only half that, which will suit most plants. If I had access to a post-hole digger, I'd use offcuts of PVC piping, as used by plumbers for drainage.

I've seen directions to using PVC pipe about 4-6" across where they drilled holes around the pipe to allow water to seep out... they capped the end.I just don't know how I'd get them down deep enough at the root line without damaging the roots.

The idea is probably that you lay the pipes down BEFORE planting out the garden, and using it for drip irrigation, which is banned here while the drought is on.

No, the pipe is vertical -- like a stand-pipe. It's capped at the bottom, has holes drilled along the pipe -- especially near the bottom, and a loose cap for the top that is just above the ground. You fill it with water (and some fertilizer if you choose) --- maybe that shower water you said you collect, then the water seeps out the holes into the surrounding soil. You're probably right that it would need to be done at planting time.

OK daisy, you've got me thinking! What if you made the PVC pipe longer and laid horizontal -- drilled with holes all along, then attached by an elbow to a vertical to above ground so you could easily fill it with your grey water.

L____________

It could be a smaller diameter pipe -- maybe just 2" -- to cover a larger area.

Sounds good to me. You might be able to get special drainage pipe, commonly called 'aggie pipe' (agricultural pipe) which has holes already in it. I can't dig, so going that way isn't an option for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: ag pipe