Establishing Plants with Irrigation with Ken

Deliver the Water Where We
Need It

I am not a fan of irrigation,
or I should say, misused automated irrigation. How many times have you seen
automatic sprinklers running in the rain, or those that have shifted and are
now watering the driveway instead of the lawn? I don’t water my lawn very
often, but I live in a fairly moist climate. However, I know that many garden
plants need to be watered if nature doesn’t provide enough at the right time.
For example, native plants that will eventually become fairly self-reliant,
want coddling until they become established. I like to put the water right
where it is needed using soaker hoses or drip irrigation tubes and spot-spitter
emitters
. When I decided to grow woodland wildflowers from my local area in
garden beds, I laid soaker hoses down to help them get water for their first
season (right).

Our guest this week, Jennifer
Riley-Chetwynd of the Rain Bird Company tells us that drip irrigation will
someday even be coming to lawns. That may bring the end of water sprayed from
above and being lost through evaporation. We also talk about some water-saving
techniques – so important in places like Arizona where Jennifer lives. But as
she points out, most American states have implemented some kind of watering
restrictions in recent years.

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