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Drip irrigation installation is an easy way to assure your plants get the moisture they need to thrive. Time and effort can be saved if the design is set down on paper before making any purchases. After purchasing all the components needed for the configuration you want to employ assembling the parts and then laying them out according to your plan is pretty simple. An afternoon of work can make watering as easy as setting a timer or manually turning on a faucet.
The snap together construction of the various drip irrigation components make the assembly almost effortless. A layout can include connections to several valves and many types of components. Drip irrigation installation consists of staking the half inch limber plastic main lines out on the ground in such a way that micro-tubing lines can branch off of to deliver the slow application of water to the different areas to be serviced by the drip irrigation system. Often the above ground lines are covered with mulch but that does not keep changes to the drip irrigation installation from being easily made.
By drawing it out on paper the drip irrigation installation you can be assured you purchase the right amount of tubing, elbows, emitters, mini-sprinklers, and j loops for your project. Non-pressure-compensating ends work on lines under 200 feet long across areas that are relatively flat and level. Hilly ground or the lines longer than 200 feet will have low water pressure and you will want to use pressure-compensating emitters. Other emitter options are foggers and misters that increase the humidity, special setups for container plants, and little mini-sprayers to water entire beds from beneath the foliage of the plants. Just like traditional irrigation, you will want to overlap any sprinkler coverage by half to achieve even watering. Operating pressure can become an issue when using combinations of emitter types so reading the manufacturers specifications is important. In addition to emitters and hoses a drip irrigation installation includes an anti-siphon device, filter, pressure regulator, and usually a few elbows.
A home drip irrigation installation might include j loops of tubing positioned around tree drip lines, a length of tubing snaked below ground cover and equipped with mini-sprinklers with overlapping spray patterns, another length of tubing with inline emitters run to the vegetable garden. A micro tubing line might run to the containers on a deck or porch equipped with pressure compensating emitters. Flow rates can vary from half to four gallons per hour for micro tube lines and from 3 gph to 40 gph for lines with mini-sprinkler and mister heads. The addition of timers can be attached to faucets to automate the watering process.
By adding drip irrigation installation to your landscaping scheme a homeowner can simplify watering of all the different elements of the yard except lawns. The benefits over inground sprinkling systems are the ease of modifying the irrigation layout as features are added or removed and the conservation of water resources while still supplying the right amount of water for a thriving landscape.
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Author Bio Box: Patricia Wainwright
Get all the facts about water management and organic gardening at GreenThumbArticles.com!
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