BTW I was looking for gardening advice and it appears my personal garden web has switched over to my pro page. I am responding as an amateur urban gardener only. Hope our personal experience can encourage you. I lived on the clay of the Canadian prairies and has a SSW facing side yard that could not grow grass (too hot in summer with reflection off stucco home) so I planted thyme and let it go. The bees came and set up lots of hives underground, so you know it was dry. Best friends a girl gardener could ever have. No gophers, no snakes, no pests. The Burr oak trees thrived. The foundation was just fine. The entire house was on a manual operation system but I had valves installed inside the house. Likely if you have clay without any ancient rock coming up you will be just fine. Go for it. Shut off the water between houses and see what happens. Just mark where you close off lines in case you need to restore the original system. When our house was newer we had some soil settling from the infill for excavation, but that was easily remedied by adding more and resloping. If you have heavy clay you could slope your side to create a simple gutter to drain front and back at the edge of your property line. Ensure your soil slopes away from the houses. You may want to add gravel for a walk way, which ants and trespassers do not like as much as paving blocks. If you are in a suburb with close neighbors you could work on a mutual beneficial no water zone with drainage to front and back. Hope this encourages you. In our new location we have arid steppe again but the soil is sandy and rocky as we sit on an ancient river system. I have done all the line and layout (the fun dirty digging work) but hired a professional to work at the irrigation diverter. I do a lot of math as a K&B designer and felt hiring a pro irrigation brain to calibrate and assemble the additional pressure controls was money well spent.

Xoxosmom, I am not an expert, but I have been doing some research. The decision of sprinkler Vs Drip is actually made on the basis of what type of plants are planned in the strip. Veggies and like that need constant moisture do well with Drip. Large shrubs perhaps might benefit from sprinklers. Another consideration is, if your plants get completely drenched by sprinklers, it attracts slugs. If the plant planned has a trunk, then perhaps a sprinkler might be ok. Also, since you are starting a new garden, how about planting some draught tolerant natives that need no water once established? Things like ground covers, native bushes/grasses etc.? Just my 2c.

My backyard has a new 5 valve sprinkler system on a timer. In areas where plants don't like being watered from above, or are big enough to block the sprinklers from covering, and near groupings of potted plants, I have retrofitted Orbit Quad manifold drip heads on top of the risers. I am switching back and forth between sprinklers and drip whenever it suits me. Consider installing sprinklers before planting and adapting it to your changing circumstances later. I am currently swapping in more thoughtfully distributed drip emitters in an effort to lower my water consumption in a mostly tropical garden, by putting the water exactly where I need it. I mostly use the flag emitters and have not yet had any problems with clogging. Last year I removed all the drip in the frontyard borders and re-installed sprinkler heads on the risers for better coverage after removing a lot of cannas. I am slowly switching to Australian and South African natives and will revert back to drip.

One suggestion is to find a sprinkler head you don't need (like a popup sprinkler used for shrubs that are mature enough that they no longer need irragation) or you can install a new 1/2" outlet to your existing system. Then all you need to do is attach a drip head conversion kit. It allows you to run up to eight 1/4" microtubes from the single head and you can regulate the flow/pressure to each tube. You can buy the converter at the big box stores. I've used them for years and have had no problems with pressure. I've included a link to the conversion kit sold on the Drip Store. Here is a link that might be useful: Drip Store Head Conversion Kit