I recently had a sprinkler system installed and have a question. I'm in
northwest Florida.

I have a large plant bed containing hibiscus, brugmansia, hydrangea, and
other similar plants. The bed is heavily mulched. This bed is watered using
spray heads. These spray heads put out 1.5-2.5 gallons per minute per head.
The heads spray roughly a 7' radius, and the head-to-head coverage means
that most plants are served by 2 heads.

In determining how long to water my lawn, I've read how you can set up cans
to figure out how much water is put out and then calculating how long to run
the sprinkler to put down a healthy quantity each time you water.

I haven't read anything that would help me figure out how long to run my
plant bed sprinklers. After the sprinkler was initially installed and many
plants were transplanted, I started by running the heads in the plant beds
for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon each day.
This was necessary since it was a hot, dry period and the plants were
stressed. Now, everything seems healthy and I'm trying to figure out what
would be an optimal (or at least close) watering plan.

Can anyone provide suggestions? I assume I could use the can method to
figure out how much water is put out by the sprikler, but I'm not sure what
would be considered an optimal amount to give the plants.

Tony