Drip irrigation here is essential - it's an institution not a home...and there's no way one person could hand water everything. That said, I would say "both/and" is an approach I take. The plants get their drip irrigation, but I choose different plants each week to give an extra deep hand watering to, especially during adolescence. This way, I'm not flooding and drowning little bands, and by deeply watering youngish roses in their 2nd year, you would not believe the roots they put down. I had to move a 5 year old Mme. Lambard this past December, and the roots were scary.

I think you're right about the therapy of watering...so that's my solution.

I do drip irrigation and it has worked wonders for me and all planted in the ground gets watered evenly. More time to sniff, clip and enjoy. The pot ghetto gets water by hand and it's a chore. But in all I still totally enjoy every moment.

Kasie

I have an irrigation system and use weeding or deadheading as my quiet time. Don't miss hand watering one bit.

Like Jerome, I use drip and hand. Drip makes certain everybody gets regular watering and then I can devote hand watering to individual needs. Drip is the most efficient form of watering. About once a month I make a tour to be sure everything is working--no plugged emitters, etc. My meditation time is weeding, which also gives me a close-up of how each rose is doing.

The main bed gets drip, and I'm seriously considering it for the smaller bed. It is such a time saver, because it was taking too much time, and when it gets hot here I don't want to be outside, but the watering can still get done.

I hand water everything but have only about 90 roses with quite a few companion plants so it's not that much of a chore, especially since I spread it over two days. When it gets really hot and I have to do it every day it IS a chore, but fortunately my husband helps. Having said that, drip irrigations is a lot less work and probably also a great water saver.

Ingrid

Hand watering makes a gym membership unnecessary, but what about emergencies, or vacations, or big projects that need total attention? Drip is good--and you can always turn it off.

I have overhead sprinklers set to run 1 hour on each zone, from 3 AM, that way they are finished by dawn and the leaves dry off quickly... I find it helps prevent BS also prevents spider-mites.... I only hand-water pots that are in out-of-the-way spots... saves lots of time for other chores I can get done before the heat of the day sets in.....sally

What kind of drip system do those of you who use it have? I had a spinkler system last year but feel that it contributed to black spot. I would like a drip system for the roses, but I also have a lot perennials and annuals around the roses which did benefit from the sprinkers. Does anyone do a mix of drips and sprinklers? Does each rose need one drip or more than one drip? Thanks for any info.

Dripworks (dripworks.com), they have an introductory "rose kit". The larger plants get 2 - 3 emitters ("shrubblers"), 1 each for everything else. I can get replacement parts locally.

I can't do a drip system unless I want to tear up my driveway to install it so I have soaker hoses in the beds and just hook up the hose to those. But the pots all get hand watered. That takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours and only needs to be done every 2 or 3 days depending on how dry it's been. So that gives me my Zen time. But even on the days I don't water I walk all my roses anyway. I check them out and talk to them and they talk back with their lovely blooms!

seil, that's how I connect my Dripworks irrigation system. There is a connector at the start that attaches to my hose. I don't have underground water or anything like a sprinkler system. The tubing for the drip irrigation sits just under the mulch.

montana rose, an overhead sprinkling system will work but it must be done early so the leaves can dry but not so early that they sit with water on them most of the night. I water each of 8 zones for one hour every other day or oftener if needed in my sandy soil. The system starts at 4:00 a.m.
By one each day, all the leaves are dry. I have little blackspot and don't spray fungicides.

What is this extra watering you speak of? My roses are on their own once they are more than a year old...of course, Shrub roses and OGR's aren't a Hybrid Tea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings blog

And professoroush, you don't go from May though August without a drop of rainfall either!

I have several rose gardens in Wisconsin that I hand water. (Probably 150 roses.)
Recently I bought a home in Florida which has drip irrigation. Now I am wondering what the heck was I thinking! Now I am convinced irrigation is the way to go! I'm always out in the garden anyway, so there is still plenty of time to spend with my babies. Do it, I don't think you'll regret it!

My son set up my potted roses on a drip system recently and I cannot wait to get one in at the house along the fencerow! SO easy and I dont have to think about the watering at all.

I've heard that the freeze/thaw in our climate means annual repairs each Spring--yet another thing to fix!

I would th ink that you could do the repairs in less time than the hand watering would take every day. May take a day to repair or replace drippers or line, but so much faster than hand watering if you have a lot of roses. I had a drip system when I lived in MA and do not remember a lot of problems with it. I grew Dahlias there. It was critical to have the drip system or else all I would do is water.....

What makes our freeze/thaw so bad is all the water--the Minnesota tip method assumes dry ground--didn't work in our yard. We just cover the ground with mulch and the ground stays moist between the weekly rains falls.

Professorroush - here in No Cal it DOES NOT RAIN from the beginning of May usually until November - not one drop. AND the weather is hot and dry during that period - no humidity. That is why most of us out here in CA have irrigation systems.

We tried one of the early "drip systems" and had to trash it - it did not provide nearly enough water. Now we use the same sort of idea in many places, but my DH has connected mini soaker hoses (about 1-2 ft long and maybe 1/4 inch in diameter) or tiny sprinklers (spray maybe 10 inch diameter circle) to what was the drip system. These also go easily into pots.

In other parts of the garden we still have the original 50-60 yr old metal pipe sprinkler system - it is connected to the "not drip" system in one automatic system (there are 18 different stations - it runs 6 stations per day, alternating so that each station runs every 3 days all in the middle of the night. It is so dry here in the Summer that everything dries out fine.). In even other areas we have traditional soaker hoses connected to the automatic irrigation system.

Then there are other areas where my DH has connected soaker hoses to separate hose bibs, with just a manual timer (like a kitchen timer) which you can use to turn off the soaker hose after a set amount of time (he did this because I used to forget and leave them on all night).

I do still hand water some pots (I seem to collect pots faster than my DH can set them up on the automatic system), and I have to remember to run around and turn the 8 soaker hoses on that are attached to the kitchen timer thingies. But, the main system saves the garden when we go away, and I have the neighbor girl who feeds our cats turn on some of the kitchen timer things (like to water the tomatoes, which would only survive maybe 4 days without water in our climate).

Yes, our water bill is atrocious, but our garden is lovely, and my 150+ roses are a delight. We live on a wide large boulevard that is a main street in our town, and the street frontage is well over 100 feet. All of my neighbors and many pedestrian passer-byes thank me frequently for the beauty. Yesterday a 20 something (NOT usually an age that notices the garden - usually they are walking along with their noses in their phones) girl stopped me and said thank you - she said "Are these your flowers?" when I said they were, she said "every time I go by your house they brighten up my entire day". Nuff said.

Jackie

Do any of you use the wands that stick 6 to 12 inches into the ground to inject water? It has simply QUIT raining in Houston! So, I got one and have been watering with it. No splashing, no drift or runoff. At 2 gallons per minute lets me put 5 gallons under a plant quickly and move on. Seems to be working very well.