Hotter days ahead

We have just passed the summer solstice here at the foot of Africa, and are now on our way to shorter days. The sun will set later for a week or so but is offset by a later dawn, and then we will gradually begin to notice. However, the next two months can bring blistering heat - not something many of us look forward to after the last two years' damaging droughts. Water restrictions have been relaxed but many of us have got so used to limited usage that we can't think what to use the extra allowance for! We are currently 120 litres per day under our limit. 
Sadly, the water table has not risen and is already at its minimum (certainly under my garden!) and so I fear for the survival of my plants, as the watering of such a large garden from 5-litre bottles is onerous and back-breaking. On the other side of my fence, a spider gum, Port Jackson and other unidentified alien invader are the main suspects in the saga of the low water table, as they are growing as if their roots have hit an aquifer. If it weren't for the fence, I would have been over there with a chainsaw long ago. Regrettably I cannot afford R2 000/metre to sink a borehole through 35 metres of granite into the finest fresh water right below us.
In the meantime, I have been working hard at transforming what is left of the garden into a waterwise, deeply mulched bed of hardy indigenous shrubs and aloes, and this is paying off. What I have realised is that 35 years ago I should have planted a tree in the middle of the lawn, not at the edges of the property! Although it is not exactly Kirstenbosch, it is so far removed from the patch of sandy lawn of a few months ago that the transformation makes it seem so. It is still a constant battle against the mole rat that throws up mountainous mounds and has completely excavated the garden, so much so that I constantly expect to disappear down a hole at any time. For the moment, I appear to have conquered that battle, but don't want to talk too loudly about it, as I suspect that its relatives have had a hand in the recent demise of my favourite pincushion.