Change Irrigation when changing come grass into flower garden

8 years ago

I have a new construction home with a new irrigation system. It works fine for my large (1/2 acre) yard, most of which is bermuda grass. I would like to change some of the grass into flower gardens. P(particularly, I am interested in rounding off some of the corners with triangle flower beds to soften the yard and make mowing easier. Often sprinklers which serve large areas of the lawn are located in corners (for obvious reasons). My question is if I plant flowers and/or low shrubs into these new beds, do I need to move the big sprinkler heads and/or add sprinklers for just the flower beds?

Featured Answer

Sigrid

8 years ago

You need to look up your sprinkler system and figure out what kind of sprinkler heads you have. Most sprinkler systems have a horizontal and vertical range. Horizontal is how far they spin around. Most can do close to 360 degrees. The vertical is how far they spray in one direction.

If your system will cover the garden beds with a wider angle of spray, that can probably be fixed easily. (You can probably do it yourself, looking it up on YouTube).

If you want soaker hoses in the beds, that would require putting in a separate pipeline or lines. If the flow rates you want for the flower beds are much lower than for the lawn, you need new lines put in.

Your controller box may need to be upgraded to handle more lines.

What a sprinkler head generally can't do is to jet 3 feet into the lawn, when facing the lawn and only one foot when facing the house (and your foundation garden bed).

Your controller box will have the brand name. The sprinkler heads will generally tell you what sort they are on top. Look them up, do a bit of Googling and you'll have a much better idea of what can be done.

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Comments (8)

hilltopbob
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks so much Sigrid for your good advice and guidance. I will do some investigating and googling and may return another question after that. Thanks again.
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Red Berm
8 years ago
Also lawn often takes more irrigation than shrubs so you have to look at the different valves to see if u can convert an entire valve to shrubs So you don’t over water them.
hilltopbob thanked Red Berm
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
8 years ago
Pop-up sprinkler heads are the least efficient at watering plantings like shrubs or perennials, which would prefer infrequent but deep soaking of the root system, not the tickling of the foliage that a sprinkler offers :-)

You might want to post any further questions in the Irrigation forum.
hilltopbob thanked gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
Judy Mishkin
8 years ago
do you know who installed it? their card or sticker might be on the controller box. they may be able to tell you things about how/where your hoses were installed, rather than starting with a new company.
hilltopbob thanked Judy Mishkin
hilltopbob
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks to all of you. Gardengal48, in some of the locations I have soakers in nearby zones. Perhaps I could add one or two to pull over to these new beds. What do you think? Also, I agree this thread should likely be in the irrigation forum. Where is it now? Is there a way to move it?
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
8 years ago
Yes, pop-ups can be converted to drip emitters :-) And just click on the link I highlighted to get to the Irrigation forum. You can't move this thread but you can certainly start a new one (and reference this one if you like).
hilltopbob thanked gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
hilltopbob
Original Author
8 years ago
Oh, I thought I would just try to add some soaking lines. But converting popups to drip emitters sounds even better. My system is Rainbird. And they have a conversion kit and Youtube on how to do it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk-bQxQnkVY). Thanks so much for the tip. I will start future treads on irrigation in the irrigation forum.