We are enduring a typical April drought in south Florida. It’s hot, it’s dry and rainy season usually rolls in after Mother’s day in May. Until then we gardeners are painfully conscious of water conservation.

That’s why we get ticked-off by blatant water wasters. Yes, there are obvious scofflaws that water their lawns every night but at least their plants benefit. The greatest water wasters are people (and companies) who are clueless about their broken, inefficient sprinklers.

The first photographs are in a parking lot of a mall in Ft. Myers where the tell-tale ghost of a river of wasted water pumped all night from a broken head.

The second series of pictures are from the parking lot of a shopping center in Naples where the irrigation was spurting at 3:00 in the afternoon. Even if the system was effective, this is the most inefficient time of day to water: Nearly half of irrigation water can be lost from evaporation in mid-day. But, the clogged and bent heads were raining fresh water onto the pavement, draining, not onto shrub beds but rolling into the storm drain.

Ghost of irrigation past: This broken head must have shot like a geyser last night.

The offending, broken head.

It has not rained here for three weeks.

Many heads on this irrigation zone are clogged and damaged, resulting in precious water being poured on the pavement, not the beds.

This bad head is watering the sidewalk.