David Hare-Scott wrote:


Sprayers are good in that you can see what area they cover and adjust
them to fit. They are not so good as they encourage some fungi by
wetting foliage and kicking up spores from the dirt in some cases, they
are also likely to waste some water through evaporation or runoff. Both
of the latter problems can be minimised by not running at high pressure
and monitoring how the soil is taking up water. Risers are to allow you
to bury the pipes and to give greater coverage (especially above mulch)
as within limits the higher the jet the further it will shoot (and be
carried by the wind).

Drippers and soakers don't have the disadvantages of sprayers, you can
put them under the mulch and waste almost nothing. However the water is
all applied at one point so the coverage is dependent on the hydraulic
qualities of your soil. With very sandy soil the water is likely to go
downwards and not spread much away from the source, which may be exactly
what you want - or not. In very clay soil infiltration can be slow but
as long as you apply the water slowly to avoid runoff it will be OK as
the water will spread if supplied slowly It is possible to get dry
spots and these can be hard to notice and you can get plants
congregating around the wet spots. Mostly you can deal with this by
some careful study and inserting/removing extra drippers where required.

Go to an irrigation/sprinkler shop as once they realise you are serious
they will explain much more than the bored student and Bunnings who has
no clue. Take home all the pamphlets and do you sums, arrange your
bankloan etc

Try:

http://www.hunterirrigation.com.au/

for a start.

Oh one final tip. Get some extra joiners for the cuts you didn't mean
to make and some plugs for the jets/drippers yopu didn't mean to put in.

David


Great! Thanks, David! Sounds as though I might be needing drippers
and/or very short risers then. Part of my garden will be devoted to
roses and I'm historical about getting the foliage too wet and causing
awful fungus to take hold. Another part will be for shorter annuals and
some herbs, so p'raps the sprayers will work best there. DH has laid the
majority of the pipework and all I have to do is decide how I'm going to
distribute the water.

(NB. About a hundred years ago, they were selling out watering kits at
KMart or somewhere. They cost hardly anything - $5, I think - so I
bought about half-a-dozen, thinking to water my Mum's yard *really*
well! LOL! Instead, I went back to Uni and the half-dozen kits went up
in value. They've come in extremely handy this year, when I need to get
a largish amount of garden watered efficiently. At last! Something went
right! LOL!)

--
Trish Brown {|:-}

Newcastle, NSW, Australia