How often should you water a garden in Mallorca?

Water deeply and less often. For established Mediterranean planting on Mallorca that usually means a long run once or twice a week in high summer and almost nothing between November and March. New planting is the exception and needs more, consistently, for its first two summers.

Why deep beats frequent

A short daily run wets the top few centimetres, and roots grow where the water is. That produces a shallow root system that cannot survive a week without you. A long run twice a week pushes water down, roots follow it, and the plant becomes progressively more independent. It is the single change that makes the biggest difference to how a garden copes in August.

What changes by season

July and August are the peak: long runs, early morning or at night. May, June and September need roughly half that. From October the rain does most of the work, and by December most established planting needs nothing at all. Leaving the summer programme running into autumn drowns roots and wastes water, and it is the most common irrigation fault on this island.

How to tell whether you got it right

Dig. Twenty minutes after a run, put a trowel into the bed and see how far the water reached. If it is damp for a few centimetres and dry underneath, the run is too short. If water is standing, it is too long or the soil is compacted. This tells you more than any schedule copied from a website, including this one.

The rule that overrides everything

Municipal restrictions. Where they are in force they set which hours you may water, and often limit garden irrigation to drip on low-water planting. In the stricter regimes penalties reach €3,000, so the local rule beats any general advice about frequency.

The detail is in water restrictions and your garden, and what a system should cost is in the irrigation cost guide. If the programme has never been set properly, send the job through and a vetted local company will look at it.