John, Sounds like you could just run some mainline tubing down your rows and use drippers on most of your plants. No sense running soakerhose and watering in between where you don't need it. You could however use the soaker for your strawberries. Maybe sprayers for the flowers. Not sure about the berries, maybe adjustable sprayers. By using drippers in your tubing you can put different gph in one line, so plants needing more water can have a different dripper than one that might need less. I also highly recommend an Orbit timer, they offer a 6 year warranty on them. Email me and I will give you a number to call for some help. Lori

I prefer http://www.dripirrigation.com/ Their shipping costs are cheap for the lightweight stuff (emitters, couplers, etc). If you ever need heaver hoses and stuff, you're probably better off getting that at the local home improvement stores. Those kits are pretty nice to start out with. You can always add to it as your situation changes. As far as simplest program. The drip tape, t-tape and soaker hoses are the easiest because you don't have to fuss with all the individual emitters. Of course that takes some of the flexibility out of things, but it's not a bad way to go.

vj, You can be as specific or as spread out as you like or need with drip. The key is making sure the water spreads out(plumes) enough to get all the root ball. Depends of the emitter type you use. There are many out there. I use emitters on 1/8" tubing coming from a 1/4" lateral for trees and vines. Two or three per tree with variable flow emitters. For herbs and larger areas I use T-Tape on both side of the plants or even circles. I would not water Bougs very much, they don't like much water and unless you want a very large plant,keep them in pots in or above the ground. JMHO Aloha

I have used a few different kinds of drip in my own garden, as well as designing installing and maintaining irrigation in garden maintenance for 12 years. My own recommendation is to use soaker tubes encircling each rose bush and have the roses on their own separate line. Roses need deeper watering than most perennials, and more frequent watering than most shrubs, if you have roses mixed with other plants. If they're in a perennial border you can do alright using the adjustable shrub sprays that send out streams of water in a circle - not the misting/fan type mini sprays, they clog too easily. Drip technology has improved vastly over the past 10 years. Be sure to use a filter on your drip supply line - even municipal water can clog the tiny little orifices of a drip emitter. One reason I like the soaker tubes, they don't clog as easily. If you're in Sunset zone 15 then I assume you're in NorCal and probably on clay soil. Do not use an ordinary lawn or garden spray system on roses as suggested above - maybe that's ok in Louisiana but not in CA. The roses will not get watered properly and they'll either suffer from lack of water or you'll waste a LOT of water and earn the ire of your neighbors and water utility. You need to apply water slowly, for a long time, and infrequently to get the rose roots watered in CA's typical adobe clay. That means drip. When I grew roses in Redwood City (Sunset zones 15-17), I had 3/4" PVC supply lines that ran out to the roses, and then 1/2" PE (soft black plastic) soaker lines that had inline emitters constructed into the tubing, that put out I think it was 1 gallon/hour. I made a ring of 5 emitters (5g/hr/plant) out of the tubing and encircled each rose individually. This worked GREAT. It was a lot of work to set up but - It never clogged, it never got kicked or raked away from the plant, the plant got water all the way around instead of just on one side, and the roses all got enough water slow enough and deep enough. And it lasted for years. The PVC parts shattered in the Big Freeze of 1990 but so did everybody's. That was for roses that were planted individually, not in a mixed bed. I had clients using the micro streamer sprays on roses in mixed beds and that worked too. You need to make sure that each rose has its own, at least 1, streamer, and that the entire root ball, 360 degrees worth, gets water. In heavy clay water will spread laterally quite a bit but you still can't rely on putting water just on one side of the plant. What I didn't like about this system was its vulnerability to being stepped on or kicked or raked or stabbed or plugged up by earwigs looking for a nice cool dark hiding place. Both systems are vulnerable to chewing by dogs and raccoons. Who knows why. I second and third and fourth the recommendation to stick to one brand with irrigation in general and drip in particular. And don't get the cheap stuff at the big box stores - poor QC means poor results. I get either name brand stuff from a professional irrigation supply house (you'll need a business license, and to know what you're doing) OR go to DripWorks online. Great company, great products, very helpful. They're in Willits but you don't have to go there, just buy online. Have fun! Here is a link that might be useful: DripWorks drip irrigation supply