Drip Irrigation: Water-Efficient Gardening Made Simple
Do you ever wonder how you can conserve water and time when it comes to landscape watering?
You’ve invested a lot of money in your landscape, including the design, hardscapes, and plants, also known as softscapes. You don’t want a lack of rain and hot temperatures to kill your prized flowerbeds.
In this blog post, you’ll learn about
- Garden Irrigation Systems: Why Drip Irrigation Stands Above the Rest
- Sustainable Watering Solutions with Bubblers for Your Trees and Shrubs
- Tips for Combining Drip Irrigation and Bubblers for Water-Efficient Gardening.
Garden Irrigation Systems: Why Drip Irrigation Stands Above the Rest
Did you know that a watering system is available to you that saves water and promotes healthy plant growth? It’s called drip irrigation.
Tiny tubes carry water from your system and emit large drops of it right at the root zone, where the moisture is needed most. Additionally, drip systems promote healthy plants by avoiding leaf contact.
You can set up your drip irrigation for your containers as well as vegetable gardens, landscape beds, and under trees and shrubs.
Say goodbye to hand watering, as micro-irrigation, also known as drip irrigation, can be connected to an outdoor faucet or your in-ground irrigation system.
Your automatic sprinkler system should already have timers and moisture sensors set up in the controller, allowing you to set the timer for your drip irrigation system.
Here are six reasons why micro-irrigation is considered water-efficient gardening:
- Delivers water directly to the plants’ roots
- Reduces water evaporation because of the delivery
- Reduces water runoff and over-watering because of its targeted approach
- Uses less water than sprinklers; the Environmental Protection Agency reports a 20-50% reduction in water use compared to conventional sprinkler systems
- Improves plant health and lessens fungal disease risks
- Minimizes hand watering and helps cut your water bills.
Learn more: Summer Lawn Watering Made Simple: Water Conservation Tips for Healthy Grass
Sustainable Watering Solutions with Bubblers for Your Trees & Shrubs
Bubbler systems are similar to drip irrigation as sustainable water solutions because they direct water to the root zone, rather than spraying it over the plants. It avoids misting and prevents fungal diseases because, again, no water is landing on the plants’ foliage.
Some bubblers have water that spills over, allowing it to percolate deep into the soil and encouraging deep root growth. Sprinkler heads are unable to provide this targeted watering to the woody plants’ root systems.
Tree and shrub bubblers also have adjustable flow rates that you can use based on your plants’ watering needs, making them perfect for water-efficient gardening. Plus, some tree bubblers come with pressure compensation, ideal for homes with low water pressure, ensuring your plants get consistent water delivery every time.
Learn more: Landscape Watering to Beat Summer Heat
Tips for Combining Drip Irrigation and Bubblers for Water-Efficient Gardening
Bubblers fall under the category of drip irrigation and can be integrated into your garden irrigation system. Here are some tips for combining drip systems and bubblers for water-efficient gardening:
- Bubblers, as part of the drip irrigation system category, will easily integrate with drip systems for sustainable watering solutions.
- Tree and shrub bubblers provide high-volume water to encourage deep root growth and water woody plants efficiently.
- Bubblers come in different sizes and styles, such as micro-bubblers, flood bubblers, stream bubblers, and mushroom bubblers. Choose the correct bubblers to meet your landscape watering needs.
- Drip irrigation works perfectly in containers, vegetable gardens, and landscape watering because it emits smaller amounts of water rather than a bubbler’s constant streaming.
- Bubblers should be in their separate irrigation zone because trees and shrubs have different watering needs compared to flowerbeds, vegetable gardens, and containers. It’s recommended to cap off unused bubblers.
- You can use the adjustable flow rates to adapt to your woody plants’ growth. Adjust flow rates in areas where you have different-sized trees and shrubs.
- You can also buy pressure-compensating bubblers to ensure that the water flows consistently, even with low water pressure, and to eliminate runoff.
- Bubblers’ other landscape watering benefits include slow flow rates for deep water saturation, targeting the flow at .75 gallons per minute or slower. By watering deeply, trees and shrubs develop roots that tap into nutrient-rich, moist soil when drought strikes.
While you may want to add bubblers and drip systems to your garden irrigation, you don’t want to try it on your own. Instead, partner with the experts at Tomlinson Bomberger to establish sustainable solutions for water-efficient gardening.
Let Tomlinson Bomberger Upgrade Your Garden Irrigation System
If you’re looking for sustainable watering solutions, contact us today to start your drip system upgrade.
Sources:
EPA.gov, WaterSense: Outdoors.
K-Rain.com, Tree Bubblers.
RainBird.com, The Basics of Drip Irrigation.
YardCare.com, Irrigation 101: Drip Irrigation.
DripWorks.com, Drip Irrigation: All About Drip Irrigation Bubblers.
Tree-Land.com, Bubbler.
