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Oct 19 2009
Save water in your garden
Here in the southwest, we are facing water restrictions with more to come. Irrigation for our yards is a large part of our water use. There are a few ways to cut down on water use in your yard. These can be broken down into irrigation and plant material.
First, we’ll talk about irrigation. In my own experience, most people over-water. Over-watering not only uses more water than necessary but can also be harmful to plants by contributing to fungus and root rot. This can be adjusted at the controller, if that runs your sytem, or by watering for less time manually. A lot of science and equations can be used to calculate the water needs of your plant material. But there are some general guidelines that you can use. The soil that is being watered should not be wet to the touch. You can test this by simply sticking your finger in the soil. If it is wet, moist is okay, then water that area for less time. Second, water should not be running off the area. This tells you that the area is getting too much water too fast. The watering time should be less for these areas. Third, water at night or in the early morning. Sun and heat will cause a great deal of evaporation. A good amount of the water will be evaporated before it reaches your plants.
Beyond this, you can make changes to your existing system. There are “smart” controllers that can water based on environmental factors and the information you put in. So you don’t have to change the program due to change in temperature or precipitation. You can also change the type of sprinklers you use. Several companies are developing nozzles as alternatives to spray nozzles. Sprays are currently the standard but fall short in some areas. The spray “mist” can easily be blown by the wind and they put out a good amount of water increasing the chances of over-watering and runoff. There are a couple of alternatives that I would recommend.
There is drip, which is a good option. It waters the root zones of plants and it would have to run for quite a while to runoff. There is a tendency for the lines to get clogged, but manufacturers such as Netafim and Rainbird have products with check valves at each emitter to reduce this.
Another option is using rotary nozzles. Rainbird and Hunter are manufacturers that carry these. The advantage to these is the low precipitation rate. So, much like drip, it would have to run for a while to create runoff. It is a spray nozzle, but the streams of water are less susceptible to wind and misting. These are a good option for slopes because of the low amount of water that they put out. My husband and I have decided to use both of these options in the yard we’ll be installing soon. We’ll use the rotary sprlinklers for our small lawn area (we’re getting a dog very soon). The drip will be used for most of the other planting areas, definitely the shady areas that will remain moist longer.
If you did not want to try and do this yourself, and you have the resources, you could have a certified irrigation auditor do this all for you. Wouldn’t that be nice? This is one resource for irrigation professionals http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pp/lists/irr_partners.htm#CA.
The other, more fun part, is plant material. I will go into this more next week and I will be posting a “plant of the week” that is a low water use plant.
