Enviro-friendly Irrigation Techniques

Mark Slicker, account executive for VMC Landscape Services, says that drought conditions in his hometown of Dallas have made it necessary for many landscapers and their clients to rethink their landscaping plans. “The problem isn’t going away,” Slicker says of drought conditions. “It’s going to be around next summer and the next summer after that.” As water demand rises from coast to coast, it will become increasingly important to your clients that you perform water conservation through environmentally friendly irrigation.

Program Control
Eric Santos, division irrigation adviser for ValleyCrest Landscape Maintenance, says that the biggest waste of water is a failure to adjust controls on a regular basis. Irrigation manufacturers are developing new devices that can self-adjust based on six pre-set parameters, including sprinkler type, soil type, plant type, exposure, the grade of the slope and root depth, as well as sensors that help calculate the needed irrigation for the day.

Zoning is key. An existing irrigation system can be broken down so that turf and other thirstier areas, which are attractive but require much more water to keep them green and healthy, receive morewater than heartier plantings, such as shrubs. A flood bubbler will keep a tree’s root ball irrigated. Group your heartier perennials in one bed and segregate the annuals. Otherwise, Slicker says, “you’ll drown the drought-resistant plants just to get the annuals the water that they need.”

Recognize that different climates demand different landscape solutions. The clay soil in California will hold water better than the sandier soil found in states such as Florida, but it’s also more difficult for the water to infiltrate. In southern California, Santos uses a regimen of cycle and soak. “If you need about 12 minutes of irrigation for clay soil,” Santos says, “there may be a lot of run-off with clay soil so set your programmer for six-minute run times and allow the water time to soak in between cycles.”

Drip irrigation, which uses water more efficiently, can either be line source—better suited for shrubs or other dense areas where evenly spaced emitters punched into the line will simulate the effect of rain—or point source, where the emitters are customized to the spacing of the plants themselves, replicating the effect of watering each plant by hand.

Thirsty Plants Need Not Apply
“Everyone likes color and seasonal flowers,” says Jason Vesko, branch manager for Brickman in Hartford, Conn., but try to steer your ownership toward plant material that’s native to the climate, which will be more durable and less in need of regular irrigation. Install perennials, which don’t need to be replanted, to take the place of annuals that require more water.

“Annuals do a wonderful job of brightening the property and very few perennials can outdo annuals in terms of color and vibrancy,” Slicker says. Use a variety of perennials, each of which blooms at a different time of year, in the same bed. “If you’ve got some perennials that bloom in the early spring and some in the late spring, and some in the early fall and some in the late fall, you get additional color changes.”

Check the System
While the system is in service, check the valves and heads every four to six weeks to make sure that they are sealed tightly. Also, make sure that none of your devices are spraying water on hard surfaces, such as sidewalks. Develop an internal checklist for every site, separated by zone, so that you can perform your regular inspections with consistency and prepare a detailed report of cracked or broken heads to the owner.

“We instill in our people the need to make regular checks,” Santos says. “When you see a plant stress or see a brown spot on the lawn, go check the system before increasing the watering time.”

Mulch More, Water Less
“Mulch is a wonderful tool to reduce the amount of water you put out,” Slicker says. Mulch will help hold the moisture at the root zone and also introduce organic material into the soil. Rocks also can assist in moisture retention and even if you aren’t a fan of the Southwestern or desert look, you can combine rocks and soil in difficult-to-water areas, such as pitched slope, to prevent the property from wasting water.