Job's Nursery LLC

Helping Tri-City Gardeners Grow for 75 Years!


With irrigation water limited this summer in some of our customers irrigation districts. We thought it would help everyone to learn how to train their yards for better drought tolerance.  In spring if you train your lawn and shrubs for non daily waterings and deeper soakings this encourages your yard plants to grow deeper roots to better store water for longer periods of time.

A way to do this is to tune your irrigation timers. Both Hunter and Rainbird have free apps to set your run times more appropriately for established yards.  New plantings this year will need to be babied a bit more but they don't need daily water.  Only hanging baskets and potted planters need that in hot conditions.

A link to Hunter's App

A link to Rainbird's App

Things to know as you tune your irrigation timer
-The soil type of your yard: Sand, clay, silt or a mix of the three (loam).  This will help identify how your yard behaves in drainage and moisture retnetion.  Sand has very good drainage and can handle longer run times of sprinklers but needs more frequent runs.  Clay soils hold moisture very well however it does not take to long run times well, short bursts work best to prevent run off and water waste. How to tell soil texture by feel.

-The exposure of that sprinkler zone.  Full sun, afternoon sun or wind exposed sprinkler zones dry out faster through evaporation than afternoon shade, mostly shade and wind protected zones.  Thus as you adjust your sprinkler zone times based on their separate exposures. This can be determined by taking time to walk around the house a couple of times of day and observe what area is sunny and what area is in shade at what time of day and for how long. Do this on a lazy day off.

-Your type of sprinklers.  Different sprinkles types throw out water at different rates. Common sprinkler types are rotors, impacts, sprays, bubblers and multi-streamrotors. Also if you have drip, what size of emitters are your using. Irrigation System Component Video can help you identify what type of sprinklers you have.

-The grade of the yard. Is it flat or does it slope up or down? The slope of your yard also affect how sprinklers work as well as how water will travel in the yard.  Here is a video to determine slope.