Increasingly popular with landscapers and gardeners, the flower bed can bring more character and a touch of aestheticism to your garden. Creating a flower bed can be considered a real form of art, because the idea of ??combining and arranging different varieties of flowers according to some consistency and some thematic requires real expertise. For a flower bed to always remain dazzling, its maintenance, including that of the sprinkler system, must be ensured.

You can choose between surface or underground irrigation systems, or even combine these two systems to provide better irrigation for each of the flowers in your lawn.

Surface irrigation systems

On the surface, you can install a sprinkler system that has the advantage of covering larger or smaller surface areas while being fairly discreet; watering is more like a heavy rain that will not damage your flowers, even in regard to the most fragile species. On the other hand, it is not advisable to use this system if your flower bed is made up of flower varieties that can grow mushrooms when their foliage is exposed to water too often. For small flower beds, stationary sprinklers will be sufficient. For a wider flower bed, you will find the rotary sprinklers; for flowerbeds that have angles or are flush with a wall, prefer the oscillating sprinklers that water in a rectangular rather than circular manner. Finally, if you’re willing to pay the price, you can opt for travelling sprinklers, they are watering trains that follow a pipe circuit like a car on rails.

Drip irrigation can also be considered, it is even one of the most efficient systems because despite the very low flow of water used, irrigation is perfectly located and provides an optimal amount of water to each of the plants and flowers in the flowerbed. Only a few noticeable pipes can be unattractive. Finally, there are porous pipes that allow water to pass in some parts. Very easy to install, simply place the pipes at your flowers’ base. However, distribution is generally irregular.

Underground irrigation systems

Underground irrigation systems are much more inconspicuous than surface systems. Thanks to the underground network of pipes and the use of retractable turbines or nozzles that disappear into the lawn watering once completed, your flower beds’ aesthetics will be improved. Nonetheless, an underground irrigation system requires extensive planning and work. For a small size flowerbed, you can use nozzles for watering as their range reaches 15 feet (4.5 meters). For larger areas, mini-turbines can water up to a range of 23 feet (7m) while turbines can reach up to 33 feet (10m).

To increase the watering efficiency, you can equip yourself with a timer that will coordinate the watering schedules independently. This can be very handy when you are away and you fear for your flowers’ survival. If the simplest timers allow to automate the watering’s start and stop as well as its duration (watering duration can be adjusted on select models), the most sophisticated timer models allow the user to program the watering of different nozzles and turbines independently according to the plants’ needs.

Tips for watering flowers in flowerbeds

Whatever the varieties of plants you have in your flower bed, watering should be done in early morning or early evening, and especially not when the sun is high in the sky, as is the case at noon. Indeed, the sun’s rays can pass through water drops and burn your flowers with a magnifying effect, and indeed it is better to wait until the flower bed’s soil has cooled to water it so that the water can correctly seep into the ground instead of evaporating. To maintain a certain amount of moisture, you can also install a mulch at the plants’ base with pine bark, old newspapers and even cardboard.

We must also consider the quality of the flower bed’s soil because if you have a rather light and sandy soil, water often in small amounts rather than once in large quantities, as this could lead to water stagnation. Conversely, when the flower bed’s soil is compact and clayey, watering needs to be more abundant but less frequent. Finally, pay attention to the quality of the water you use for watering; use as much as possible rain water or well water and avoid at all costs watering your flowers with calcareous water.

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Published in Watering by Alexander on 06 Jul 2011