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Rudimentary Irrigation

ciaranmcgreneraciaranmcgrenera Posts: 209
in Tools and techniques
I have been wondering about irrigation of borders- mostly because I love a project!

I need to test our water pressure before trying any of this, but I wondered had anyone tried to design any irrigation systems in their borders? 

I have been thinking of attaching hoses along the back walls/ fences with T joins every so often and a length of porous soaker hose going out into the border from each, has anyone any experience of anything similar in their garden?

Posts

  • FireFire Posts: 17,116
    I'm interested in people's irrigation project details too. Drip systems seem to get better reviews on the forum over soaker hoses.
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,634
    Do your borders really need irrigating? I suspect that few do and we mainly do it because we feel the need to be doing something. Putting in a system for watering pots is worthwhile though as they are much more reliant on our watering efforts.
    I did put in a soaker hose system run from a timer to save my OH's mum from dragging hoses round decapitating plants as she went. It worked but she never trusted technology so it got switched off. I have a drip system in the greenhouse mainly for consistent watering and holiday duty but don't bother with the garden.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 8,068
    I have a drip system for containers. Newly-planted plants in the border get watered with a can or very occasionally with a hose if I have a lot or if the hose is out for another reason. I have some seep hose that I put in when I planted a new border but it wasn't very successful - you need an awful lot of it winding to and fro to cover a whole border.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • ciaranmcgreneraciaranmcgrenera Posts: 209
    edited May 2022
    @steephill Not really from a size point of view or anything like that. There’s certainly an element of “I want a project”, and a pot watering system is definitely on the cards for my patio also.

    The biggest benefit for me would be the time saving element. We have 2 young children, 2 yrs old and 4 months old. So I find I’m gardening in stolen moments really. If I can go out and turn on a hose connected to some kind of system to do the watering while I deadhead and tidy up/ provide TLC where it’s required in the evening after the kids are gone to bed it’s a massive bonus to me in terms of what I’d be able to get done. The garden would certainly benefit, and a lot less water would be frittered away on me dragging a running hose around.

    Even better would be a timer to do it automatically in the mornings!
  • LeadFarmerLeadFarmer Posts: 1,288
    I've just set up a soaker hose for my sunflowers as Im going on holiday next week, it's just a length of soaker hose connected to my hosepipe, and fed through the plants. The end of the hose I folded back against itself and clamped it to stop water simply running out.

    The difficult bit is getting the tap position right, after quickly turning the tap on to put some pressure in the system, I backed it right off so it's almost turned completely off.
    I'll monitor this over the next few days and adjust as necessary. You can just about see the hose in this photo..


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