How do you water your plants?

Do you hand water, use a drip system or combo of methods?

For me, I hand water, which takes me a few hours a week. I let up to 3 hoses deep soak most of my plants. In the warm summer nights, I even water some plants at night.

I hand water all the plants in pots and sometimes I handwater palms/plants that i have just planted, and I usually put a sprinkler on the gardens that have more established plants where the soil is really dry-like this am. We just got thru a week or more of high 90's/100 degree days with no cloud cover and I know the beds need a good soaking.

My DH built an overhead irrigation system for me last weekend- it saves me so much time every day. I have 3 seedling benches and have turned half of the circle in our driveway into a nursery. The irrigation system is 1 inch pvc with 4 sprinkler heads and each has it's own valve. The hose runs from the house to that area and I can quick connect into the pvc after I am finished with watering the seeds. Finally got some rain, though, so the last 3 days I haven't had to water at all! I have a lot of 4 inch and 1 gallon plants (pretty much not palms, though)- summertime in Florida those little guys sometimes need water twice a day.

f4f....can you post a pic of the irrigation system your dh built for you
thx Curt

Sure. Will do. I think all the parts came from a hardware store. I will probably be able to do this early next week- I am planning on taking a mess of pictures Sunday.

f4f, what does dh stand for? dear hubby? daring harry? dainty henry? Dang handyman?

That's actually a good question- I see everyone else use it, I always assumed it means Dave Husband and DS= Dave Son and DW= Dave Wive..... I've been too afraid to ask, but not too afraid to jump on the band wagon!

Hand water, hours a day!

dh stands for dear husband :) I use soaker hoses, the hose and bottom water my pots :)

This is the South facing seed starting bench. It is my shadiest bench, so I also use it to root cuttings. I hand water all the seed benches.

These are my benches on the north side. I hand water, and the quick connect is to the right of these benches.

Shot of the quick connect for the hose.

Here is the first three of four sprinkler heads connected and supported by one inch PVC pipe. Currently, I turn this first one off- this part of the "driveway nursery" is pretty shaded and I use it for starting large cuttings like the cecropia I have started (not pictured).

This is a close up of the sprinkler head attached to the PVC and a valve below. All the parts came from a local hardware store, and also mower/lawn supply shops are good places to shop as well.

Here is the final picture from the bottom looking up. One other thing I'll mention is that we usually run only 2 to 3 sprinkler heads at at time. With the kind of length that we have here you lose significant pressure by having them all on at one time. So far, until I get even more plants accumulated along here, two heads are all we need. You are welcome to Dmail or post questions if you have any- I will probably have to IM my DH. I learned pretty quick how to glue and repair pvc irrigation back when I was assistant grower in Apopka......because I kept backing the golf cart into the sprinklers and breaking them!!! But, that's been about ten years now. Happy gardening!

I have a feeling that here in CA, the gubmint will soon determine that for us and it will be a big shutdown. I'm preparing for the worst and planting as many drought tolerant plants as I can. And I can swear by my neighbor's neglected palms that Kings WILL survive the little water nature gives it here.

Jackie, if the gubmint severely restricts water or heavily taxes it, we'll need to get rid of our lawns, but keep our endangered, rare and exotic plants. I dislike when we get those kind of surprises. uhoh did I get too political? What if it becomes illegal to water plants? Then some may be secretly taking watering cans out late at night to give their kings and things a drink of water. Lawns and cars use more water up then my little Dypsis. Let's ban clean cars.

F4F, I like your setup/yard. You make some in So Cal. envious of your space and lushness.

The past 3 days, the powers of the universe....liquid sunshine. Usually an hour every evening.

"eyes"

Thanks Dave. Wait till I get a picture of that new Chambeyronia leaf I saw this morning!

Eyes, isn't it great? I haven't used that awesome system for a week! Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

With the small amount of platns I have, I just handwater them. I used to handwater the plants in the ground but it took 2 hours to do the front and back yard. Too much time. I let the rain do the job.

The past few days it has rained a decent amount so I havent water the potted plants. I love it.

After a long night out drinkin, I water my plants....er, my neighbor's plants....well, you know.....

just kiddin'

I have a soaker hose for my palms in the raised planter and will occasionally will water by hand. Palms in the lawn get the sprinler treatment and a hand water even less often.

Well it depends on which palms and where they are. My palms are all of the potted variety. My neighbor has a Sago in the lawn that gets watered by sprinklers. He also has two Queens in a planter near the lawn. Unless I water them they are left to grab what they can from the lawn. They are doing fine, though one is growing much faster than the other. Now I have some CIDP seedlings on the side of the lawn sort of under, and on the south side of, a huge eugenia hedge. They get sprinkled with the lawn. With their position under the hedge I have to do more hand watering in the winter months because the sun hits them directly. Everything else is watered by hand every 5-7 days. Takes about two hours. If I potted everything up to one gal pots, I could probably water less frequently. One of these days I'll find the time.:)

David

You know what? That reminds me- I forgot to mention all my porch plants. That's 2 hours hand watering, or one hour if I drag the hose around. We have four rain barrels for hand watering, but my DH is the only one who hand waters because after all those years schlepping buckets around I am pretty sure I am on my way to getting carpel tunnel.