As landscape designers, irrigation is one of the most important considerations we have to take into account. Watering plants in a landscape design can be as simple as walking around with a hose and filling up watering cans, but there are much more efficient ways to water your landscape. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how to plan an irrigation system that will work for your landscape design needs. We’ll talk about how you should survey your property before installing any hardscape and what kind of zones you should divide it into so that you know where to install irrigation pipes and sprinklers.
The landscape irrigation tips we’ll discuss in this blog post will help you get a handle on planning and designing your landscape irrigation system.
When it comes to landscape design, having an organized plan is essential for success. You can never start too early when it comes to planning out all the details of your landscape project. The first step before installing any hardscape should always be laying out your irrigation system so that you’re able to use proper zones as well as understand where sprinklers are going to go once they are installed underneath the concrete or pavers. Laying down curbs, pathways or walkways without thinking about how much room there is between them could make watering difficult if not impossible later on with some landscape designs. If these hardscape features are not perfectly level, then irrigation lines can be difficult to lay underneath them. A landscape design without proper planning could lead to a ton of wasteful time and money spent on water bills or landscape maintenance costs due to landscape plants dying from lack of watering. Proper zone divisions will help you install the right amount of irrigation for your landscape design needs as well as make it easier on yourself later when it comes to choosing what kind of hardscaping material you plan on using for your project.
Zone divisions with drip irrigation systems
When designing an irrigation system that uses drip emitters, having zones is simple because these types of landscape designs typically only have one row running down the center. The main thing here is just making sure there’s enough space between emitters so that the landscape design will have proper coverage. This is a good option for bigger landscape designs because you can water more plants with just one irrigation line and there’s less maintenance involved compared to other landscape types.
Zone divisions with spray heads
When it comes to landscape designs using spray heads, they are typically used in smaller areas or as accents here or there, which makes zones easy because most of these landscape systems only need two rows. One at the front of the bed and another running down either side. Zones will be determined by how wide your beds are going to be since this is what dictates how many sprinkler heads you’ll want on each row. The distance between them depends on whether you’re watering shrubs or landscape plants. If you’re watering trees or larger landscape plants, then the distance between sprinkler heads should be farther apart, while smaller landscape plants can have closer spacing in between each head on both rows of your landscape design.
Planning irrigation zones
When it comes to planning out your irrigation system for your landscape design, start by drawing up a survey of what kind of features are going into that particular area. Are there any hardscape elements being installed? What type of material is used and how big will they be? Will this feature require drip irrigation lines underneath them so water runs down rather than puddling? These are all important questions to ask yourself before laying anything else because you want to make sure these garden installations won’t get in the way of landscape irrigation.
Also, take into account how big your landscape design is and number all these features so you can better plan out where sprinkler heads will go in order to capture every inch of your landscape area. This doesn’t need to be an exact science since sometimes landscape designs change over time, but it’s still important to have a good idea ahead of time before laying down any hardscape elements on top or around any areas that might disrupt lines.
As mentioned earlier when discussing drip emitters, determine if there’s enough space between each head for proper coverage based on what kind of landscape plants you’re wanting to grow here. If they are trees or larger shrubs then spacing them further apart is best while smaller landscape plants can be closer together.
A landscape irrigation system is a very important part of any landscape design because without it, all your hardscape efforts will go to waste so proper planning and installation goes a long way for making sure landscape designs are done right the first time.
