Presenter: Sue McDougall

Have you ever stopped and wondered how much water is being applied by the lawn sprinklers compared to the sprayers or drippers, yet we always run the stations for the sprinklers for the same length of time without a clue at how much water is going onto the garden.

Most of the reticulation systems are made up of different types of sprinklers such as pop ups on the lawn, sprays on the garden beds and maybe some drippers if your system is relatively new. Lawns will thrive on a standard drink of water twice a week. A standard drink is 10ml and this can be measured by placing any straight sided container on the lawn and running the reticulation. Run it until the container fills up to 10ml and this is enough water to get to the plants roots.

Use the same trick for the garden beds. Fine mist sprays are very inefficient because most of the water is evaporated on hot days before it even reaches the soil.

Just under the layer of mulch is the fine feeder roots and these are what the plant uses to take up all that water and the main problem with reticulation is that as the foliage grows it blocks the water to the roots.

When it comes to drip reticulation systems these have to be run for enough time to deliver a descent amount of water to the plants roots.

One last tip; the best time to water is early in the morning.