This video alone just made me a new subscriber. Great video and explanation, thank you! We will be removing 75% of our turf in our front yards next year and doing a native/adaptive planting of trees, shrubs and ground cover in Colorado. I’m currently working on retrofitting/improving the system that was installed in our backyard by previous homeowners to get ready for the big change in the front yard. Making a mistake on the backyard is a much nicer way to learn and adapt rather than the front where the HOA will quickly let me know any mistakes I make.
I’m going to install an Irrigreen irrigation system this spring and plan to add drip 💧 irrigation in the planting beds. I’m not going to miss standing around the yard every day spraying my plants 🪴!
Just looked it up, very cool system! What are you growing in your planting beds in the spring? :) LOL its very tranquil at first....then it gets a bit old after awhile :p
Most everybody I know would like to convert their drips to sprayers. I find drips have 10 times the maintenance of sprayers and when you have a drip system, you still need to water by hand periodically. When I built my new house, the man that designed the irrigation system told me that he hated drips. The irrigation installer told me that he hated drips. The city inspector said that he hated drips. And as a homeowner, I hate them too.
Seems to be a theme here about drip irrigation and hate? After working with all kinds of irrigation extensively for 45years, my position is all the various systems have strengths and weaknesses. Many problems with all systems relate to the quality of the components, the design and the installation techniques. Irrigation is an industry fraught with poor quality. I don't hate drip, or gear driven rotors, or spray systems- all can be good; but I hate improper design, low quality products, poor installation execution and neglectful maintenance. - John Valentino
I just had my front yard put in drip irrigation this last fall. I have always been a big fan of drip. So far it seems to be working ok. My landscaper put in Bubblers which surprised me but they seem to be working. I have had to adjust a few. My next project is drip tape for my vegi garden.
Awesome! What do you have the drip watering in your front yard? I love using drip in a veggie garden, seems to always bring the best yields in my experience 😀
@@JohnandBobs We did a number of drought-tolerant plants and a Japanese Lilac tree. All on drip and mulched with wood chips. A few big rocks too. I cannot wait until Spring to see the new growth and hopefully, all survived except the tree. I forgot the put chicken wire around it and a buck scratched his antlers on all sides. Oh well, we will replace that.
Here are some rough estimates: If you have a sprinkler using 1gallon per minute of water, which is relatively common, you could use 60-1gallon per hour drip emitters instead of that sprinkler because 60 1gph emitters equals 1gallon per minute. Problem is I don't know that your sprinkler is using 1gallon per minute(I'm just making an educated guess) and I don't know that you will be using 1gallon per hour emitters(there are other sizes available). -John
I've been enjoying your videos, thanks for spending the time to help educate others about xeriscaping. If I change my lawn to Kurupira, won't we be walking on the drip lines? We use the front lawn lightly, but don't want to step on drip lines. Thank you.
Good question. We bury the drip lines very slightly in the soil or we cover the drip lines with mulch and then the groundcover itself covers the drip lines so that you are walking on either soil, mulch or Kurapia, but never directly on drip lines. Hope this helps! -John
There's of course more to just choosing at random which to cap amd which to have drip tube coming out of - what's the equation or how do you determine the appropriate pressure and this how many sprinkler heads need to have drip tubing running out of as opposed to one really long tube from one head?
I converted all my flowerbeds from spray to drip irrigation. It so easy and i no longer have hard water marks on my plants. Occasionally i have to replace an emitter that has gotten plugged. Will an inline filter help with our hard water so that I don't have that problem?
Hello, after reviewing information on changing existing popup sprinklers to drip irrigation it states not to put pop ups and drips on the same zone. My question is can I use 2 pop ups on the same zones in two separate garden beds and turn them into drip vs tapping into one head and running line underneath the concrete to the other bed?
Hi Maria, Yes, that is not a problem because as I understand your description the result will be all drip on the same circuit and not a mixture of drip and spray on the same circuit. No problem at all, it doesn't matter how you deliver water to the drip. In fact, what you are describing makes the most sense - use more than one sprinkler to deliver water to various drip locations. Thanks! - J&B's
Hi John, thanks for the video. I have a question. I’m wanting to change a sprinkler that is very near a sidewalk, so it tends to spray the sidewalk, so I’ve had to turn it down quite a bit to keep that from happening. Unfortunately, the tree that is planted in this corner is not getting very much worse after. I decided to put in a drip system in place of this sprinkler. Is it okay to use a riser with a manifold with four emitters? I plan to plant a few other plants in the area. Two will probably go to the tree. The reason I ask about the riser and the manifold is because I heard that it may not be good due to water pressure. Do I need to add anything for pressure, or would it be better to use a sprinkler conversion kit? I’m new to this, and I just want to make sure I do a good job and don’t mess things up. If this will work, plan to do the same thing in another area where I have plants that need very different amounts of water. I have a plumeria and they do not like to be overwatered. And I have a mandavilla , and they like more water, so a drip would be a great way to solve this problem I think. I’m currently hand watering these. Please let me know what you think. Thank you very much. Sincerely, I don’t know what I’m doing~Melissa
Melissa, The concern about water pressure is that if you change isolated areas to drip from spray, those added drip areas might have too much pressure and be subject to coming apart. Notice on our video we didn't mix drip with sprays, we kept them on separate valves. From an irrigation purist textbook approach, what you're describing is considered improper. However, I've seen it work. If you aren't in a position to re-do the entire system, try a riser, manifold and 4 emitters in one spot. The major problem is that drip delivers water at a much slower rate than spray heads, so when they come on together it's difficult get enough water to the drip area while not overwatering the spray area. So, you would need to experiment, monitor and add emitters as needed. It can work if you are diligent, but an irrigation designer would never do it that way if starting from scratch. Feel free to ask further if I've confused you. - John Valentino
John & Bob's Smart Soil Solutions Thank you so much for your reply, John. I’ll try this and let you know how it works out. I’m also planning to add a riser with a manifold that has eight emitters so I can get water to multiple trees in the backyard. I’ll be replacing a pop up sprinkler to do this as well. If this project doesn’t work out, I’ll probably get the sprinkler conversion kit and hope for the best. It will be an awesome solution if the riser and manifolds end up working out, though. Thanks again. I appreciate it! 😊 💐 🌲 🌳 🪴 🌱 💧
Oh no! Def not ideal for creatures to be nibbling on it. Do you know what creatures are biting it? Do you have the drip underneath a mulch/top dressing? Maybe we can recommend some organic methods for keeping them away :)
@@JohnandBobs always happy to hear any suggestions! I’m thinking it’s voles or mice. I’m under snow cover for a number of months in Northern Michigan. ❄️
