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I switched from spray irriagation to drip line a few years ago and I love it! I can finally install, run, and manage my own irrigation without being at the mercy of dodgy irrigation contractors who charge an arm and a leg and do shoddy work (in my area, which is rural, so hard to find qualified people).

I use a product called Netafim, and I order it online. It is a very easy system to use. It may be meant for "professionals", but I'm able to order it and use it very easily. There is one very important key to drip irrigation I have learned....

It is better to fully saturate an entire planting bed than to run drip to each individual plant.

I began by thinking I was saving water by only have drip around each rose (they are planted approx 4 feet apart). It was very hard to install, snaking all around the beds, with tiny emitters at each rose which constantly blew off, got stepped on, and needed to be moved as the plant grew. Then I read the Netafim installation book, and they recommend using a grid pattern and covering the entire bed. When I switched to that method, the coverage was so much better and the plants really thrived since they could form large root systems spread out all around the bed.

Also, it makes moving roses easier and adding companion plants easier because you don't have to run new drips each time you make a change.

The thing I love most about the Netafim system is how reliable it is. Once it's installed, it is zero maintenance and repairs! Unless you nick a tube while working in the bed...in which case it is easily repaired. I've been using it for five years and have NEVER had a fitting come apart...they are barbed in a way that makes them stay connected.

There is LOTS more to say on this topic, but for now I will post a few pics of how we do it...

This is a flowerbed with a mix of roses, dahlias (everywhere you see a post), herbs, perennials, annuals, and bulbs. It is absolutely PACKED with plants. This picture was taken in autumn, after the flowers had been cut back and we were getting ready to plant bulbs. You can see that the drip lines are run in a very regular grid pattern. We actually ran the drip before we planted this bed...but we can install the drip after the fact as well, the lines just won't be as straight.

Everything in this bed likes the same amount of water...this is key in having a successful flowerbed that is irrigated. It does take some planning, and some restraint :) .There is actually a rosemary in the center of the bed that is not happy with this amount of water, so I will take it out and try it on the edge of the bed instead.

We install a ring of dripline around the perimeter of the bed first, then run the lines across, attaching to the outer ring. This works FLAWLESSLY! The pressure is perfect, because each drip hole in the line is pressure regulated (the brilliance of Netafim!), so you never get one area that's not getting enough water. Also, the ring around the perimeter helps to distribute the water very evenly.

Above...the same flowerbed, mulched and ready for spring!

Above....all the tulips we planted are blooming.

And here is the bed in May. We turned the irrigation on for the first time this season in May and it worked perfectly! No frantic calls to the landscaper because parts came apart in the winter, no leaks, no problems at all.

I share of all this because I feel that knowledge is power!! I am happy to share more, and to answer any questions, There are lots of drip systems and methods out there...this is what has worked best for me in my PNW zone 8b garden :)

Netafim has the best drip emitters too, RosyLady. Beautiful garden!

I bought a drip irrigation kit on Amazon,because it said that it was a system specifically devised for people who must rely on gravity for the water pressure-I have no running water out at my land and use tanks filled with harvested rain water and water that I bring in myself in a smaller tank. Also I am very, very bad at figuring stuff like this out, so I wanted the illustrated instructions. For the most part it's set up,and seems it may work, though I still have to finish Teflon-ing all the joints. My main doubt about it is that the tubes seem SO FRAGILE-they are just thin, soft plastic! This kit was not very expensive ,and I have a lot of tubing left over,so I'm (hopefully?) not sorry I bought it, if only for the fact that I see now how to set up a drip system. I intend to experiment a bit now, making a do-it-yourself cheapo one for another area,and if all goes well, maybe one day I can "graduate" to a high-quality one like Netafim. I see that they DO have an Italian site...but I want to play around with cheaper stuff before I go for something so expensive.

Thank you Sheila!!

bart bart.....I agree about starting with something you can experiment with. I started with sprays, graduated to black poly tubing with individual emitters dripping to each rose, then to the drip tube, installed incorrectly by a landscaper. It took a few years to work out a system that works for my particular set of circumstances. Even if a system doesn't work perfectly, the miracle of irrigation is a complete game changer for growing roses! You will be so happy with the results.

This is all so helpful everyone!! Thank you all so much! Rosylady, what you said about watering the entire bed and not just one emitter at the bottom of a rose makes so much sense! I appreciate that insight. :) I will have to do an update once the irrigation is installed and running. I got fairly cheap irrigation to start off with, recommended by Laura at Garden Answer with Proven Winners. Hopefully it will work well!

This is indeed a helpful thread. I sure hope that mine will work. Yesterday we went to a DIY store (Obi-it's sort of like an Italian version of Home Depot) to look for a connector that would be compatible with my water tanks. The very rude store clerk didn't want to hear me out, and stated categorically that drip won't work with a water tank, that the pressure would be insufficient. So presumtuous! taking it for granted that all gardens are flat! There's such a great dis-level in my garden, and this kit I bought on Amazon states that it is sufficient that the tank be at least 2 meters above the level of the area one wants to water. So now my main doubts are: 1) have I managed to apply the Teflon correctly as to prevent leakage? and 2) the tubes provided do indeed seem to be far too flimsy to last. However I think it won't be too hard to substitute them with sturdier models. The thing is that, if I hadn't gone and bought this kit, and merely relyed on what the "people in the store" (clerks like the fellow I spoke to yesterday) told me, I would have never even attempted this!

bluemountain....I'm glad I was able to help shed some light. Netafim is very much like the drip tube Laura uses, the difference is each individual emitter is pressure regulated on Netfim, and I don't think that's the case with the brand she uses. If you install it with an outer ring and connect all the lines to the ring, it should really help with equal water getting to each dripper. I know Laura has issues with the "end of the line" not getting enough water in some of her beds.

Bart....you are right...don't listen to people at the stores!! If I listened to those people, I would be having 1) no roses 2)a system with a million parts breaking off...requiring even more trips to the store (great business for them! hahahaha).

You will figure it out. It will be trial and error, but you will do it! Can you test the pressure of the flow coming out of your tank with a pressure tester? Like you test the flow coming out of a pipe or faucet?

Start by figuring out what you are trying to accomplish with the irrigation. You shouldn't need any to keep the roses alive and blooming. OTOH, pushing repeat bloomers for optimal performance is going to take a lot more water than people expect. We had Netafim drip, but tore it all out when we redid the rose garden. Irrigation at a 'reasonable' level just wasn't worth it. I also didn't like that you could put a shovel right through it.

Mainly what I want to accomplish with this irrigation system is to get the young plants established; " pushing repeat bloomers for optimal performance" just does not exist for me. I don't think any living thing should be obliged to "perform"; the concept is alien to my way of thinking. But I am in the process of trying to get a very young garden established: my land has only been worked-and only by myself-for a mere 20-some years. Global warming and increasing age on my own part are making my work ever-more challenging.

Back when I first started this project, more than 20 years ago,I could get away with only watering roses in their first year out in the garden, but the weather (for one thing) has become far too inclement in recent years for this to be feasible any more. It's too hot, all of a sudden, two years of horrid drought...the weather pattern is completely fuççted- up, neither I, nor the plants, know what to do.

Perhaps I may have to renounce even trying for floribundas in my garden. Constant blooming is totally off of my table- when it's 40 degrees Celsius , who in heck wants to be outside in their garden? (and mine is not around my home-it's a wild one, out in the woods, 20 minutes drive from my house). But it is worth a try, and if the floribundas do indeed sadly fail, the other young ones on the drip system -and I, the over-worked gardener-among-other-things,will probably benefit.

Besides, I'm still snickering to myself about that ignorant "man-splainer" at the store. There are lots of videos on Youtube that address drip irrigation from rain-water-harvesting tanks! not to mention that just driving around on the Prato/Florence plain, you see lots of veggie gardens (orti) with their rain-harvesting tanks raised up on structures to render gravity pressure totally

viable .It's highly amusing to consider that one is expected to take advice from a guy that doesn't even see the world around him, lol!

I haven't mentioned this before because I didn't want to confuse things. However, my house water is gravity fed. Any water system that uses a water tower is gravity fed. So years ago, when we lost power for five days, we still had normal water pressure. The water tower is just up the street from us, and it has occured to me that we got power back the day we did because the tower tank was almost empty.

mad_gallica...When you live in a place that has 150 foot trees, no rain from July-October, and glacial till for "soil" (that's what's left after the glacier scrapes everything off), irrigation is necessary for most roses to stay alive and to have one bloom cycle *on the island where I live*. I attempted roses for years without irrigation and they grew backwards and died, every time.

If I had humidity, heavier soil, and even a bit of rain in the summer it would be a whole different ball game!

Yes, you do have to take care when you have drip...it is fragile. But for me, so worth it!

Mad Gallica, thank you for that note! For me, it’s a brand new garden put in last fall and this spring. Now that the hot weather is here I would like to keep the little roses grown from bare roots (David Austin shipped quite late), and young perennials from wilting or drying out. The rain has been unpredictable here. We went a few weeks with hardly any rain, and then had an entire week of rain. All in all, I got tired of watering my baby plants since I have probably a hundred or more in all out there. It just took too long. So the irrigation is a backup plan for when we haven’t had enough rain. :) We do have a well, so that also helps. No paying for water, just the electricity to pump it.

Yep, you said it: back-up!!!

In that case, an adjustable oscillating sprinkler and a tuna fish can may be a better idea. Drip systems are easy once they are set up. However, setting them up can be a trial in itself. There are almost always places that aren't getting the amount of water you think they are, so the lines have to be adjusted. I don't think it is unusual to spend an entire season getting them 'right'. And with a well, you aren't going to want to be addicting plants to watering because wells do run dry.