Garden Irrigation

The most reliable way to find out whether your plants need watering is to prod the soil with your finger - if the soil feels just cool and damp, it's fine; if it feels at all dusty, it needs water. If you are installing a garden irrigation system you need to do a bit of detective work first.
Test plants regularly over a dry spell to see how quickly they dry out; how long can the plants go without watering before they start to look desperate? Is there a particular area of the garden that never looks good because it is always too dry? Do you have plant containers and troughs that need watering twice a day in warm weather?
If you are starting from scratch installing a garden irrigation system, consider one area of the garden first. Where is the nearest tap, or can you create garden irrigation from a water butt?  Wherever the water comes from, you need to install a system of pipes, with smaller "branches" of pipes leading directly to individual plants.

There are various types of garden irrigation systems but most consist of a main "feeder" pipe that connects to a tap, hose or outlet from a water butt, and smaller bore pipes leading to dripper nozzles which are fixed adjacent to particular plants or containers. It is very easy to connect the garden irrigation system to a timer attached to the tap so the system turns itself on and off without any need for intervention. This works fine if you are away for a few days or on holiday. However, don't forget you will still need to water your plants and check that everything is working - the drip nozzles sometimes get clogged or pipe joints can spring a leak, but a garden irrigation system can make the difference between being able to enjoy your garden or letting the plants die!

Many containers are best watered by hand - not because the watering can provides better water than a garden irrigation system but because this is the time for admiring your hard work and doing a bit of dead-heading or pruning at the same time, but if you simply don't find the time every day to achieve this, garden irrigation is the next best thing. If you are going to install a garden irrigation system it is best to start right at the beginning of the growing season so you have time to sort out any problems before the drought hits.
If your containers are grouped together in one area capillary matting, a fibrous water retaining blanket, might be a good place to start your garden irrigation system; the garden irrigatin pipe supplies water directly onto the capillary matting, from which the pots draw up water as needed and excess water is held there providing much-needed humidity around the pots. The matting can be disguised with gravel, stones or crushed slate.