Are you hand watering to much in your garden and your flower beds taking time away from family and friends? Maybe it’s time to install a drip irrigation system in your yard that will automatically do the watering for you, freeing up your time to enjoy other ways. Adding a drip irrigation system isn’t complicated and can be done on a weekend, depending on the size of area you are doing.
Location for Your Irrigation
Now that you have taken the step and decided to put drip irrigation in your beds, you now need to decide where to put the drip irrigation. Something to take into consideration is that not every plant in your beds will need to be dripped but it will not hurt them if you do put drip to them. What I am talking about here, is that plants that have been well established in your beds do not need the additional water and can survive with the rainwater. But this doesn’t mean that if you want to run irrigation to them, then do it. With this project you run it how you want too. I am just giving you some tips and tricks along the way.
Different Types of Irrigation
So, when you walk into Lowe’s or Home Depot and look for the irrigation section, you might become overwhelmed with everything there. There are two different types that you can go with throughout your beds in your yard. There is the micro system that you can use, or there is regular drip system. You can use both of these systems with each other or totally separate from each other.
Micro Drip System
Micro systems are more commonly used in flower beds, flowerpots, gardens, and small beds with smaller type plants. This is because it is going to deliver a smaller amount of water to the area. Normally with the micro tubing it is going to be inline emitters. The emitters are the places water is going to come out of the tubes. You would have a solid micro tube leading to the inline tube that goes around your plants. With the micro system you can get micro sprayers that will spray above your plants and be able to hit a larger area. There are different ways you can run this micro tubing system that will be explained later in this post.
Regular Drip System
Regular drip system are used around more of your larger plant beds and trees. With this system it comes with some different parts to it that all work together. There is just plain drip tube and inline tube just like the micro system, however, with this system the plain drip tube you can add different types of emitters to deliver different amounts of water to your plants. There is half gallon, one gallon, 2 gallon, and free flow emitters that deliver that amount of water per hour. There are also connectors that can be used throughout your system to help get around different things or to tie drip lines together. These connectors can be used with both plain and inline drip tubing. With the inline drip tube, you don’t need to buy any additional emitters because as the name stays the emitters are in line with the tubing.
Materials Needed
There isn’t that many materials you’re going to need for this project. It can also depend on if you want to just run one type of drip system or have both types throughout your beds. That is something I would plan ahead and think about before you start installing your drip system. Some of the materials your will need:
- Timer — able to connect to hose bib
- Hose bib – 2 way
- Drip tube (plain or in-line)
- Connecters
- Emitters
- Micro tubing (plain and in-line)
- Micro sprayers (there are different styles)
- Micro tubing connectors
- Drip stakes
- Knife
- Mulch
A great place to get these items is with Rain Bird. They have some extremely great products that will help you with every aspect of your irrigation project.
Now this list is everything to be used for drip irrigation, but that does not mean you will need all of it or that there are some other items you might come across that will work better for you. This will get you started and will work on any bed or garden in your yard.
You now want to walk through your yard and look at your different beds. While doing this, decide what type of drip system will be best in the different areas of your yard. Maybe you only need the regular drip system throughout your yard and nothing else. But after walking through you notice that in some areas, it might be best to also include the micro system along with the regular drip system. You could walk through and not really have an idea of which system to use and where to start. Just remember what we have already discussed early and find a base line that works best for your yard.
Installing The Irrigation System(s)
Now it’s time to start installing your new drip irrigation system(s) throughout your beds. I would start off with connecting the timer and the hose bib 2-way to a hose bib close to where you’re putting your new irrigation. If you do not have one close, then you will need to add extra plain drip tube so you can reach the area you want to start your drip irrigation. Next, take your drip tube and start running it along your plants, there is no certain way you have to run it to each plant. Do not drip to be close to the base of the plant but more towards the outside of the root system. You also don’t want the drip tubes to be on the bottom side of the plant if there is any type of slope in your beds.
Regular Drip System
After you have installed the timer and got the tubing ran to the area you want to irrigate, there are a few things you can do at this point. You can keep using the plain drip tubing and add the emitters to the plants after the tubing is done, or you can change the drip tubing from plain to inline tubing and run it all next to the plants, this way you don’t have to add any emitters. You can do it either way or you can use both and just switch them up when you need to. You might need to add the different connectors along the way to go different directions. As you are laying out the tubing take your drip stakes and stake the tubing down every foot or so making sure the tubing does not move or be seen later on. Now that the tubing is down everywhere you want it, it’s time to start adding the emitters if you are using them. The emitters just pop into the tubing and you may want to add one or more to each plant depending on the type of plant. Adding the emitters to the plants can be a little tricky but don’t over think it. Using gallon sized emitters is a good way to go and just adding more than one to different plants if needed. You can always add or remove emitters later if you notice the plant not getting enough water or they are getting too much. One thing to remember that if you use inline tubing then you cannot remove any emitters if the area is getting too wet. Another good trick to do is when you’re wanting to end your drip tube on your last plant, circle the plant and connect the tubing back onto itself using a T connector.
Micro Drip System
This system is a little different then the regular drip we just talked about. With this system you don’t have emitters you add to the tubing. You will add different types of spray nozzles in certain areas that can hit many different plants all at once. This system isn’t good for your bigger shrubs or trees, but great for your flower beds or gardens. You will run this system just like you do the regular drip, not up close to any of the plants but further away so you can use the spray heads and hit as many different plants all at once. If you’re not using the spray nozzles and using the inline micro tube, then you will run them closer to the plants so the water will actually get to the roots of the plants. With this system you can connect it to the regular drip system and hit different parts of your beds. All you have to do to use this with the regular drip system is put a free flow emitter in the drip tubing and connect the plain micro tube to it.
Conclusion
As you can see setting up an automatic drip irrigation system around your house will help free up your time and make things easier on you. You won’t have to take any more time out to stand there and water all the plants by hand while dragging a hose around your yard to water your bed. Instead, you can just sit back and just watch your plants flourish throughout the years to come.