Bart, I found the emitters stuck into the bigger tubing worked the best. The simpler the better. The less connectors the better. My typical emitter that worked best was netafim.

I wish I could be more help, but have never made a gravity fed system.

Thank you, Sheila. My situation is so particular- steep slope,no running water, and out in a woods to boot, so that animals messing about in the garden are part of the landscape, as it were. So, absolutely, the simpler the better. I'm very unclear as to the "anatomy" of these emitters (how fragile are they? do they tend to clog more easily than simple holes?); also, finding filters is difficult (you need 'em with harvested rain water). The one included in the kit is this big, clumsy thing. I found on Amazon some cute little guys that are adapted to the standard-size hose (I think that's 16mm)but I think I can make it work with a larger hose (just hook up the filter to 2 pieces of skinnier hose and feed the skinny hose end into a the fatter hose end should work ok).

They DO have Netafim here in Italy-up in Genoa. But, as I said, before I up-grade, I have to be sure I know what I'm doing. Also, only in time will I be able to assess how much I'll want to invest in this project. If an uber-simple, DIY system proves adequate,I may well just stick with that.

Do you have any advice as to how many years old a plant must be before it can do without hand-watering?

Bart, Paul is probably right about emitters being useless for you. I have well water for irrigation and still have some clogging issues on occasion like everyone else I have ever heard of.

My husband wondered if you could create some terracing and have your hose flood one row, then the next terrace down and so forth. There are timers that work on battery (last 6 months) to automate systems, but I'm not sure I could have set up anything like that on my own.

The Roman aqueducts worked if you had access to slave labor which I know isn't you.

Melissa talked about 46 inches of rain per year, in the Winter. I don't remember how much rain you get per year, but I assume only in the Winter too. Here, we get 18.5 inches per year in Winter.

Vineyards here send filtered water down tubes in the vineyards with emitters on the PE tube.

How many years you would have to water might depend on which roses and how they adapted to natural rain cycles. Melissa seems to be getting some to carry on un-irrigated after a year or two I think.

Thank you both so much! Just hearing about others' experiences is very, very helpful.

Paul-your comment really focuses my thoughts on my plans to upgrade ,and just how much I intend to invest here. Now, I must remind both of you that I have many roses that carry on just fine in drought with NO additional water. But these are all established roses , that I planted back when our climate was still normal. Back then, I only watered a new implant for it's first summer out in my garden , exactly like Melissa.

In recent years, this method seems to be failing: the sun is just too intense, the temperatures too high for weeks and weeks on end,and rain in the summer has become too rare. However I still have a vast pot-ghetto, and empty places where roses could go, plus I want to plant more trees to provide much-needed shade.

Last fall I planted out about 40 things-roses, trees, and clematis. I'm also hand-watering most of the things I put out in 2021, since it was such an awful year and they are clearly still struggling, so the total that I hand-water is about 73 plants. It takes me about 6 hours or so each week, divided into two sessions per week (one of 2hours, the other of 4 hours) in order to hand-water them all, and it is exhausting. What's more, I can only begin to work once the sun is low, so I wind up getting done only around 11PM, then I still have to go home, shower, and eat...it's too much. I need help. My goal with a drip system is not to keep plants irrigated thoroughly for many, many years; merely to enable them get established. What I think has happened is that with the recent climate change, the rootstock dies off too soon, but the plant does have enough vigour left and goes own-root. But as an own-root, it needs to recieve regular watering for several years before it can carry on without coddling. Since hand-watering is so exhausting, I have the tendancy to stop doing it as soon as some autumn rain begins to arrive,but I don't think this is adequate any more for establishing new plants An automatic system would help to prevent me from wimping out like this. The sun is lower in fall, less intense, the days are shorter, and if we're lucky, it will start to rain. I'm figuring that plants that I put out in Autumn 2021 will be for the most part fine with only drip. Probably even some-maybe most?- of those I put out in Fall 2022 would be ok, too, especially since I'll be adding a few new implants in the areas of the garden where these are located, and these new guys that I hope to put out in Fall 2023 WOULD be recieving hand watering. And this year I want to limit myself to only about 20 new implants, so by summer of 2024, hopefully I'd only have to hand-water about 30-35 plants -HALF of what I'm doing this year.

Since I've just begun this project, I don't know for how many years I'd need the assistence of drip irrigation. So I'll be keeping my up-grades pretty modest until I learn more.

Decidedly emitters are off the table-thank you both for helping me with that. Now, I looked at the Netafim site. Supposedly they have hoses that are adapted to sloping land ("autocompensanti").These -supposedly- can be actually buried in the soil ,and are constucted to resist being penetrated by roots and even keep themselves clean. Well, that sounds like a pretty tall order to me, but...??? They have hoses that can emit around 2 litrs per hour. Fact is, I will have to be there in person to turn on the faucets (nope, Sheila, no slaves here, lol). so if I could use buried hoses I wouldn't have to wait until 7PM to start watering since evaporation wouldn't be an issue. If I do decide it's worth the investment, I can contact them and ask for advice.

Well, in any case, merely turning on a faucet is one thing. Scrambling about in the dark,buggy heat on your hands and knees under thorny canes and low-hanging shade cloth in order to move your hose from one plant to another is quite another!

Once again, many, many thanks! best wishes, Eileen

What we do for love.

I am interested in what your yearly rain amount is at your garden property Eileen. Do you know?

I am not sure that you have as much as Melissa.

Not doing this here, but I thought this was interesting. https://youtu.be/BuYGS5pLRZg

Netfim on a slope: the only issue I've had with Netafim on my (gentle) slopes is that the pressure is not as good at the top of the slope if the water connection is at the bottom. As long as the water is coming from the top of the zone, then flowing down, it works very well. It works the other way too, but the plants at the top are a bit drier, i've noticed.

The great thing about Netafim is that the emitters (for me) never clog, nothing breaks, and there are NO LEAKS in the connections because of Netafim's barbed connections. All the landscapers talk about how solid the Netafim connections are...that's part of why I tried it. I was sick and tired of clogged, blown off emitters that I had to constantly fix.

I just remembered, my gardener Diego made a video for his YouTube channel showing him install Netafim in my garden. It's in Spanish, but you may like to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDlQf6CgSc

Thank you all once again. Rosylady, I will try to find that film, though I don't dare click on the link because in the past Houzz has played ugly tricks on me when I tried clicking on perfectly innocent links on it's forums. My entire land has a sharp slope, but the areas I want to irrigate are pretty flat-very gentle slopes, that is. My tanks are at the top of my garden, so the water connection is indeed on top of the slope; I get pretty good water pressure. I would still worry about the connections just because the faucets of the tanks are unconventional, but in any case I'm not ready by any means to do any up-grading yet. Thank you so much for your in-put; hearing other's experiences helps me to learn.

Sheila, according to Internet our town gets 34.37 inches of rain annually, and I guess most of it comes in fall and winter, but in the spring, too, some years. Very little in summer, alas. Our town is 257 meters above sea level, but my garden is on a hill that is about 600 meters above sea level, so it may well recieve more rain than we get down here. However my general impression of Melissa's main "advantages" are that 1) her house is right there, in her garden 2) they have a pool from which they can get water, and probably also have access to running water and 3) her DH does the watering! Plus, I get the impression that in recent years she has (wisely) not put out any roses, just other plants, and in any case mostly has once-blooming roses, apart from near the house. The areas I wish to irrigate are both near the top of my garden,and in areas where I didn't want to put trees before, because the view is so beautiful. But now the sun is just too cruel, the heat too high. I need to put in some trees to protect these areas, too. Also, I am trying some floribundas, which I realize may not be able to survive in the long run. In fact, if it were only they that were struggling to establish, I might well just not bother. But recently planted climbers and a few old roses are having trouble, too, and in the past they've always been pretty easy-going, so it's time to try something new. Often even a small change can make a big difference.

Thank you for that Eileen. My video has terracing and flooding and no emitters but he has a water source in a Spring which I wish you had.

That amount of rainfall gives me hope for your garden.

Ah, I need that hope , Sheila, as we enter yet another long phase of hideous African weather. I'm so exhausted, and screw up so much. Yesterday, while out watering, I saw that Quicksilver no. 2 was obviously dying. I dug it up and will try potting it up to save it, but it doesn't look hopeful at all. Sad, and frustrating-this is one of the roses I put out in fall of 2021, and I've been watering it faithfully. It didn't look too good recently, and I shouldìve dug it up long ago,but it's hard to make decisions especiialy when it's so hot and one is so tired and doesn't think clearly. I have an idea that this plant just didn't like its' spot-perhaps too shady for this variety? too much competition? Boh. I can replace it pretty easily I guess, since Barni carries it, but, geez,it is frustrating and disheartening to lose a plant you THINK you struggled to cultivate, only to find out that you made the wrong call.

I have had that happen Eileen, where a rose cooked to death and I wished I had potted it earlier. I really feel for you and Ingrid and Melissa and all of us.