Watering a new garden in this heat.

I have a new garden and a flower bed that I have made, the soil is clay so very dry at least outside, I have been watering every other day mostly this seems ok, some plants are not so great, difficult to water a great deal as we cant have a hose pipe.

I also have quite a few young plants coming on in pots I have been watering these every night, I have lost quite a few of the small ones.

Any thoughts?

I don't think that there's much that you can do if you're conserving water, apart from watering daily and with a very targeted dribble of water on each plant.

Once it's rained and the soil is moist, mulches work very well to reduce evaporation and retain the moisture for future dry spells.

Chipped bark is biodegradable, not harmful in the sort of quantities that animals may ingest with the odd chew or two, and it keeps paws nice and clean so they may be wet, but they won't walk mud into the house while the mulch is in place. I've found that it lasts about a year before starting to really rot down and make decent houmus you can work into the top soil to improve the clay (before adding another layer on top). I can do my whole garden for about £70 delivered, if I shop round for current offers.