If you can afford drip irrigation then get it. You will save a HUGE amt on your water bill. Since the hose is buried a couple of inches below the surface the water drips from the emitters directly to the root area with no evaporation.
Rather then daily watering or multi time per day watering it is possible to irrigate just once (with a mulch cover of a couple of inches) and in an emergency twice weekly and not have to watch your garden dry out and perish.
My wifes flowers have never looked better and the savings in water (foe irrigation) is almost 50% not to mention the time saved in not having to stand there with a hose or manually run the irrigation spray heads.
I am aiming to do that very thing. This will be my big fall expense and am working hard at selling things in my eBay store in order to be able to offer cash later this year.
My son suggested a combination of drip and overhead depending on whether beds or lawn area. He thinks it will cost about $3000 (I have a very large yard and garden).
I had put off doing it in order to do other improvements and repairs, but the time and money spent this year has convinced me it would be a sound investment. I also need new windows, so I had better get cracking on selling!
When I bought my house here in Delaware swamps, it had a buried irrigation system around all the gardens. That he had professionally landscaped, in fact, by Mexicans.
I ripped all attachments to hose faucets right on out. I mean what if I need to put in new gardens, new plantings?
It’s not that the landscaping was bad as done but the guy before me wasn’t much of a gardener. He had a lot of Burning Bushes all around....they’re okay. He had a lilac where there was no sun.
That serviceberry bush above, with the pic of my cardinal, THAT thing was on the wrong side of the porch and was reaching out almost horizontally desperate for sun. I ripped it out and moved it next the garage.
Hey, the cardinals like it and those are my judges.
Understand I’m just ranting here, not much disagreeing that a drip irrigation system isn’t a good thing. It is.
I find one of life’s greatest and most peaceful pleasures is walking my property with the garden hose.
I have a well, may I remind, pay no water bill. I have a septic tank. Even in Delaware’s high water table it works well. We have it pumped every three years.
I am a Backyard Wildlife Habitat Steward and my yard is certified as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat. Which means I plant and plan to attract the birds and such and I do, I say proudly.
As I water I get to admire my growing beauties, I get to consider what to plant here or over there or lately, how to kill the mole without having to watch it suffer.
Keeps me happy.
Jus’ sain’.