dd,

What is your experience level with installing drip irrigation or any irrigation? Will you hire a licensed installer or have your landscaper help install it? What is the dimensions of your garden. Are the irrigation sprinklers you would like to eliminate on the irrigation zone with other types of landscaping? More information allows a more meaningful answer. Aloha

I also live in San Diego and use Netafim. That is just a brand name for drip lines. I use it though because a wholesaler recommends and sells it and it is as good as any other that I have tried.

I had no experience with sprinkler systems or drip lines but found some excellent books and also classes that are offered periodically at Cuyamaca Gardens in East County. The classes or seminars are about three hours long and are instructed by landscapers who install such systems. They cost around $20 to $25 and are well worth it.

After taking one or two of those classes and reading books on irrigation from Home Depot and Lowes, I installed a big system (about 2000 feet of PVC and 300-400 heads). It worked well for many years and some of it is still there. Part of it was replaced by large drip systems.

There are some excellent books (free) available and I downloaded them many years ago and they are the most informative of anything else that I have read.

If you want to send me an email, I will return the email with these two large documents in pdf format. They are written by Jess Stryker and may still be available on the net.

One thing that I learned there that I did not understand and did not believe was the incredible difference in water volume between 3/4 inch and one inch lines.

I bought a set of pressure and volume meters to verify it and the 3/4 inch line produced 8 gallons per minute and the one inch produced 13 gallons per minute with the same pressure. I put in all one inch lines because of this and it will support a lot of sprinkler heads.

Good luck

I just did a Google search for Jess Stryker and he now has a large web site. This site has even more information than was available when I downloaded my books.

It is http://www.jessstryker.com/

I don't know of any better source of information on sprinklers and drip systems.