A yard beautifies a home in so many ways. Families love and enjoy yards because of the great view, space to run around, play, get creative, enjoy outdoor meals, and even host guests. Most green thumbs enjoy curating a variety of plants that would help beautify their yard and making it the most stylish looking one on the curb.
There is one very important component to keeping your plant enthusiasm in check, and also having your yard looking great so you can do all the things you enjoy doing in your yard. This is a sprinkler system. Having a sprinkler system in place is so important but most homeowners worry if it may be expensive to set up, and a waste of water.
Conserving Water and Saving Money with Your Sprinkler System
You can conserve water and save money at the same time with a sprinkler system. It is absolutely possible, and this can be done if you install and program it correctly. Irrigation systems need a water-efficient design to avoid wasting water.
Ten Ways To Save Water With Your Sprinkler System
You can make your sprinkler system at home more efficient so that it saves water. By making a wise choice for a sprinkler system and considering its design, its installment and its programming, you can help save water as well as the environment.
Install a rain/freeze sensor
A rain/freeze sensor can be installed with your sprinkler system. This sensor turns off your irrigation system when it starts raining or when the air temperature falls below 32°F.
Set up drip irrigation and bubblers
You can set up drip irrigation and bubblers for your flower beds, trees, shrubs and small yards. A small yard would be defined as a yard which is part of a home that’s located in a city. Drip irrigation works adequately to irrigate your lawn. No matter the yard size, driplines and bubblers are perfect for flower beds, trees and shrubbery.
Know how much water your lawn needs to survive
Depending on where you live in the US, you can only water your lawn on certain days due to mandated restrictions. Additionally, if water is at a premium, you may need to stagger watering your yard grass over the week. You can tell when your lawn is stressed when you walk on it and your footprint doesn’t disappear in seconds. Then you know it’s time to start your lawn sprinkler.
Test your sprinkler system to make sure it’s working correctly
If part of your lawn is fully exposed to the sun, it’ll have different watering needs than the part of your yard grass that is under the shade. You can test your sprinkler system to see if it is working well, by placing tuna cans in different areas of your yard. Turn on your sprinkler system for 15 minutes. After time’s up, measure the amount of water in each can using a ruler. Add all the measurements and divide by the number of cans used to find your system’s average output. Then, readjust your lawn sprinklers to deliver the right amount of water per zone.
Direct water to the root zones of trees and shrubs
Don’t point your sprinkler heads toward the trunks or the leaves of your woody plants. Rather, try to focus the point where the water hits, toward the root areas and adjust your sprinkler system to hit the ground underneath the canopy.
Use a rain gauge to measure rainfall
You can control the amount of water output when you use a rain gauge. If you get ¾ to an inch of rain on a particular week, you can turn off your lawn sprinklers for that week.
Rearrange your landscape into hydrozones
You can arrange your planting in such a way that you shift plants that don’t require as much water to one zone, and then plants that require a lot of water in the next zone. That way, you can design and set your irrigation zones to provide the right amount of water for each zone. You’ll end up using less water with this strategy and saving more water.
Adjust your sprinkler’s timer to meet seasonal needs
You don’t need your irrigation system or driplines to go off at the same time at the same amount all year round. Especially during the rainy months. Instead, reset the timers based on each season’s watering needs.
Make sure your sprinkler gives your property end to end coverage
Design your irrigation system so that one sprinkler head delivers enough water to meet the next spray head. We suggest sticking with the same brand of a sprinkler system, to accurately set up end to end coverage.
Use rotary nozzles
Rotary nozzles give out water more efficiently than spray heads because the nozzles deliver water at a slower rate, allowing water to percolate slowly and deeply into the ground. You can get modern rotary nozzles for smaller yards as well as larger ones.
Important Things To Remember
Remember to keep your irrigation system in check every month to see if it is working efficiently. Sprinkler heads can break, pipes can burst and leak, or you may have a misdirected sprinkler head watering your driveway rather than your lawn. Also remember that it is good to invest in a smart sprinkler system so that you can not just save money, but most importantly save water too!
