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15-May-2006
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#21 |
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Beginner
Join Date: Apr-2006
Location: Denver, Colorado
Country: US
USDA Zone: 5
AHS Heat Zone: 6/7
Posts: 62
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Basic set up.
First you poke some holes into your 1/2" tubing with the punch. Then you plug in a barbed coupler, then you hook the 1/4" tubing to the coupler. At the other end of the tube you set up some sort of emitter.
Here are two pieces of 1/4" tubing attached to the 1/2" tubing. One is with a regular barbed coupler, the other is one with an on-off valve. The on-off valve goes to my azalea, and when I fertilize with miracle gro, I shut that one off and hand fertilize with miracid. Extra valve and coupling are shown on the rock. Just to the left of the tubes is a wire hold-down that keeps the 1/2" tubing from wandering off. The next picture is a bunch of tubes from the 7 trees on the stands hidden in the lilacs. It's an ugly mess, but it's easy to hide. This shimpaku has the basic soaker hose setup (and a dog wondering why I'm taking picture of trees). The elbow sends the tube over the pot rim, some wire and a stake hold everything down, and I use a T to connect a circle of soaker tubing to the 1/4" distribution tubing. This picutre has the system on, and as you...uhh...can't see, it keeps all the water in the pot rather than spraying all over (although there are some little pinholes in the spongy hose that spray a little, but it's inconsequential). These seedlings have a better view of the ring of soaker hose. They're connected together as conjoined twins, but it's the same idea. The mugho is set up the same way, and you can see the soaker hose running over the top dressing on the soil. It actually has two loops to allow more water. |
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15-May-2006
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#22 |
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Beginner
Join Date: Apr-2006
Location: Denver, Colorado
Country: US
USDA Zone: 5
AHS Heat Zone: 6/7
Posts: 62
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Small pots
OK, if the pot doesn't have much surface area, you can loop around the soaker hose like the corokia below. Not terribly pretty, and I'll probably switch it to something else once it's better established (it's a recent repotting).
If it's really tight like in this cascade pot, you can use a bubbler head, which I've pulled out. The other picture is it bubbling away on its lowest setting, which is probably a bit too much, but the juniper seems to be thriving on it anyway. When you stand one of those adjustable bubblers upright and turn up the flow, it makes a nice umbrella of water for watering things in the ground, for example. |
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15-May-2006
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#23 |
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Beginner
Join Date: Apr-2006
Location: Denver, Colorado
Country: US
USDA Zone: 5
AHS Heat Zone: 6/7
Posts: 62
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Showing off
I bought a bag of foggers and I wanted to try them out. This is probably excessive, but it demonstrates a point.
I have a Sequoia sempervirens that just doesn't seem to enjoy the dryness here, so I thought I would wet its foliage. Here it is in a pot with a labrador for scale. Good stay, Tucker. For this I used a tee instead of an elbow at the pot rim. There are two loops of soaker hose under the foliage to water the roots. Above the tee I put some copper wire inside the 1/4" tubing to allow it to hold a shape. The tubing is wired to a support stuck into the pot to keep it upright. The fogger is in the end of the tubing pointing at the tree. Here it is, spraying away. I tried to get a nice rainbow in there for your viewing enjoyment. The foggers have a relatively high flow rate, and they waste a lot of water. On the other hand they're neat. |
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15-May-2006
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#24 |
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Beginner
Join Date: Apr-2006
Location: Denver, Colorado
Country: US
USDA Zone: 5
AHS Heat Zone: 6/7
Posts: 62
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Future directions? Questions?
I'm planning on running the system the rest of the way around the house so that I can put my trees wherever I want to (out of sight for the ugly ones) and so that I can water my mother-in-law's potted plants too, to keep in her good graces. The one thing I worry about is that each component is an additional point of failure. That and the dogs are going to think plastic tubing is tasty stuff and fun to chew.
Also, it's possible to move the system off the spigot and just add another valve to our automated sprinkler system, making the drip system its own zone. This would put it almost completely out-of-sight, but would make it a slave to the yard's watering schedule, since our yard timer just cycles through each zone in sequence. On the other hand, this might be useful for people with a more sophisticated yard timer than we have. Any questions? Suggestions? Warnings of impending doom? If I add in anything else neat, I'll post it. Also if anybody is dying for a better picture of anything, don't hesitate to ask. I could even just hook up some heads to show you what they do if you're burning up with curiosity. |
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15-May-2006
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#25 |
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Beginner
Join Date: Apr-2006
Location: Denver, Colorado
Country: US
USDA Zone: 5
AHS Heat Zone: 6/7
Posts: 62
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One last caveat...
I was looking at my initial post, and it is a bit too enthusiastic. I was just excited that the system was working so well and solving the major problem I had last season.
Your mileage may vary, and if you get regular rain and high humidity, it probably makes little sense to automate, unless as a vacation backup. Our "mountain weather" is predictably unpredictable, in that it rains almost every day for part of the summer, but not for very long. The rest of the day is sunny and dry, so the pots tend to dry out on a regular schedule from day-to-day. We don't really fluctuate from a week of soggy rain to a week of heat wave (which makes automation difficult), rather we go from warm and dry to hot and dry with afternoon thunderstorms. Anyway, I hope this was useful. -Jason. |
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19-May-2006
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#26 |
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Long-time Beginner
Join Date: May-2006
Location: south Georgia
Country: USA
Posts: 3
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Be Optimistic...it DOES work!
Jason, for what it's worth...
I used an automated system for a number of years, while living in the heat and humidity of Miami, Florida. It worked well for me, using an overhead mist system (drip was something of a "new thing" back then -- early '70s), and it would come on for approximately 15 minutes (the shortest period that my timer would allow) 2 or 3 times a day. (I would change the number from time to time.) I had approximately 35 trees in various stages of development, but all were planted in what you might think of as a "dense" soil, compared to what you're using. I had healthy trees, with no root rot problems, with the benches and trees sitting in full sun throughout the day. The converse of this situation was as several others warn: automation tends to lead to becoming unobservant, and within a period of a busy few days for me, the system DID fail, and I lost my entire collection. That began my "withdrawal" from the activity for a very long time, and it's only been in the last few years that I've begun to rebuild. I still grieve at the thought of a boxwood that I purchased as a semi-developed bonsai from Brother Paul, at BosaiMonk, back in the "early days". Sigh. Also several very nice Black Pine, among others. It was a very sad day...and months, following that short lack of attention on my part. You must be vigilant, and the automation can never replace regular care on your part. Bonsai are a responsibility as much as children or pets, and you can lose a great deal of time, not to mention "friends", should you forget that. Good luck! |
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