At this time of year, when summer sun is doing its annual roasting
of central Texas, I am often thinking of the best ways to keep all
of my lovely plants alive.
As gardeners we must try our hardest to conserve as much of our
precious water for our landscapes as possible. Drip irrigation, with-
out question, is the best way to accomplish this.
The traditional approach has been to use hoses and sprinklers.
Then along came the high-tech underground systems with their
automatic timers, pop-up sprinklers and rotors.
All of these simply throw water in the air in the hope that some of
it might benefit the turf, flowerbeds and plants that it lands on.
Drip irrigation, however, is a focused technique that supplies the
right amount of water directly to the plant’s base. Plants love it,
and will show their gratitude by flourishing through these hot
summer months.
To set up a drip system, connect a soft poly pipe to your water fau-
cet, and run the pipe along the soil surface. The next step is to
punch ‘emitters’ into this pipe at the base of each plant.
Gardeners often use mulch to cover the pipe and emitters to further
conserve moisture.
Some other benefits of drip irrigation:
1. You save water (and therefore money) since there’s no evapor-
ative loss to the air. It all goes directly to the plants.
2. Water is added to the soil slowly. This reduces and often elimin-
ates water loss due to run off.
3. Weeds don’t get watered as much.
4. Plant diseases, like powdery mildew, are kept at a minimum
because foliage is kept dry.
5. Water can be tailored to individual plant needs. Water loving
plants can be given more by adding extra emitters, while xeri-
scape plants have less.
6. Best of all, drip irrigation is easy to install for both existing
flower beds and vegetable gardens. Often there is no trenching and
existing automatic systems can be adapted easily.
When we combine drip irrigation with native and adaptive plant
species, we can then all make the very best use of water… our
most precious resource. Happy Gardening everyone! ❦
