Yes, Ken. PLEASE?

I'd love to hear about your drip irrigation system! Details please?

wake up ... start coffee .. stumble out .. open spigot ... walk to 3 zones and open water ...

mid afternoon .... walk back out.. turn off 3 zones ... and open 3 others ....

just before bed .... walk out.. turn off 3 zones .... turn off spigot ... go to bed ...

repeat ad nauseum .. until near ground freeze ...

WATER ... WATER... WATER ....

would enjoy more specific questions ...

ken

PS: if heavy rain.. skip for day or two ...

Ken sounds like you need a couple of valves and a control box

all the hard work is done now you can just automate

this is the box i use and it is great and easy to program / adjust

http://www.hunterindustries.com/Products/Controllers/procintro.html

then you would just need to add the control valves that match up with the pipe size you used

Here is a link that might be useful: hunter control box

Greenguy I would do as you have done yet the best grower I ever knew water his own greenhouse personally by hand. He had employees who could do it so I asked why he did it himself.

He said; "When you water yourself you are looking at the plants see problems I would never know about it if didn't water myself".

I don't get crazy if one dies or even doesn't perform up to my expectations so I really do neither. BIG BUTT, if you saw my before and after front yard photos, that was lack of water in the terrible drought we had last AFTER the terrible freeze in spring.

The more attention we give our plants the better they do and what you and Ken do fits that definition.

I'm personally looking for more passive ways of watering.

All that said I personally seen Ken's garden and no one could argue that it is anything but grand, well grown and healthy even in difficult circumstances (sandy soil).

Just for you Butch - note the PVC pipe running through the beds.

{{gwi:1039437}} {{gwi:979744}}

My husband used PVC pipe, capped on one end with a quick fit hose connection on the other end. He then used the PVC pipe to hold pop up sprinklers above the beds. When connected to a hose, the moisture is always under the tree foliage. In some of the beds, the sprinklers have on/off knobs, some smaller areas do not. Those are either on or off.

In the first picture, that area is quite large and has one long pipe through it and two different branching PVC pipes running off of it. I have great water pressure here but I can't do that section at one time - I have to water part of it and then the second part.

In the second picture, that bed has two upright sprinklers that gives me 1 1/2" of water in an hour.

I have four other hosta areas with the mister systems in them and I much prefer his watering system. Much easier to make sure everything is watered enough. Darn ants also love crawling into the mister tubes and I always spend 30 minutes trying to get it to work throughout the bed. I much prefer the plug and go.

Here's another picture of the end of a bed. {{gwi:1039438}}

We now have the PVC pipe system in all daylily beds plus the two hosta areas.

thumbnails are clickable

Ok, so, we want to do an irrigation system this year and hub wants me to just get a pop-up for the beds. UM NO!!! I guess it's better than nothing, but I really want to do drip.

It's agreed to run a spigot out to the garden for me and I was thinking of installing a 4 or 6 opening Y-splitter thingie (can't remember what they're called). On each of those, I was thinking of getting a timer so that I could "stagger" the times they're open without having to think so much about it (I'm not good at remembering to water!)

So, my questions for you are these....
1. How long of run should you limit yourself to?
2. How many emitters per run?
3. Do you just have 1 emitter per hosta? Do larger/more hosta require more than one emitter?
4. What system (brand) did you choose and why?
5. Can emitters from one system be used with the hose/pipe (whatever it's called) from another system?
6. My bed runs the entire width of my lot (100') and is 6-15' wide. And it also runs along my side lotline about oh 40-50' and is again, 6-15' wide. Have you any specific thoughts about it?

TIA!

eo - it is all about time or lack there of. I could water by hand (at night) but then i wouldn't have time for other things so by letting a computer do the watering i get a chance to mulch or see my kids bfore they go to bed etc.
I do understand about getting into the garden to see what is happing and that is why i really enjoy cutting my lawn but i had to hire a landscaper to that the past few years as well and i hate it - they do a crappy job and i hate to spend the money on sopmething i used to enjoy

melissa i have used hunter sprinkler parts for years and have them with my current system and they are great but i have never done anything with drip
i installed a mist system in one of my smaller hosta beds and it worked great and am very happy with the results until one of my dogs ate some of the mist nozzles (no big deal to fix). I went with mist because;
1. i knew nothing about drip
2. it was easy to use with my current system
3. i figured the mist would look cool (by my little pond)
4. a few mist nozzles cover a fairly large area with a symple layout
5. it was cheap

I ordered a bunch of mist nozzles from dripworks they were about 45 cents a piece and cover about a 10' diameter

the only downside is you lose some of the water to the sun and you water the leaves (which has the benifit of cooling but negative of disease/rot blight) and wind will blow the mist easily

I use a combo of mist and drip, mainly because my sister found two different systems at a garage sale and got them both for me for under $5. Having finally opened the packages and installed them last year, I'm hooked! It made a huge difference last year with our Midwest drought. Both systems seemed to work fine. I get a bit more satisfaction watching the mist and knowing they are getting watered instead of just seeing a dark area grow around the plants. Expanding this setup out to my veggie garden is next on the list. Mix and match -- PVC, drip, garden hose..whatever works best for you.

Indyrose, who wishes she'd done it years ago!

Ken, have you tried the solution?

How's the kids, that little boy was so damned cute I wanted to take him home! Of course, your daughter was such a little lady.