# Drip line zones



## coloradom1212 (Aug 3, 2021)

Last summer, I installed a lawn irrigation system for the front and back yard, and this spring, I'm planning to add drip irrigation. My current setup has the POC / one manifold in the front of the house with two zones (1 lawn, 1 spare for drip) and another manifold in the backyard with three zones (2 lawn, 1 spare for drip) with a 1" PVC mainline to the back yard manifold.

For drip, I am going to have shrub/perennial beds with mostly native options (located in Colorado) in the front & back and also planning to start a small vegetable garden in the back. The front faces east and the back faces west. 

Would I be okay to use 1 zone for all of the shrub/perennial areas for both the front & the back (running blank tubing between the two) and the other zone in the back for the vegetable garden, or is it important to split up the front & back shrub/perennial areas into two zones? My preference would be to stick to 1 zone to save adding another valve and additional parts.

If I just do 1 zone for the shrubs, would 1/2" blank supply tubing be sufficient between the front & back or would it be good to go bigger?

Some other details:

Front & back yards would each have ~90 ft of potential drip but would use individual emitters vs. tubing due to spacing

Front to back manifold distance would be ~100 ft of blank tubing


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## zeroibis (Sep 28, 2020)

The first big question you want to ask yourself about drip zones is if you need to water everything on that zone on the same schedule. Think about the plants you want to have on a given zone and ensure they have similar watering requirements.

I have multiple zones based on what I am watering. I got one zone for a group of gardenia and azalea on the top of a hill, another for all the arborvitae and despite my hedge of sky pencil holly and hedge of camellia being one in front of the other they are on separate zones becuase they have different watering requirements. Lastly my Hydrangea are on a separate zone becuase those need to be watered more often than anything.

You can use inline valves to control some things, for example I have a redbud, japanese maple and a magnolia on the same zone as the camellia but I have a manual valve on them because they do not need to be watered as much as the camellia in the summer and I just have the drip on them for when we are really lacking rainfall.

Most drip systems are designed with a PSI around 25 and as a result they will run great even on long runs, over pressure tends to be a larger issue than under pressure. Just be sure to actually go and check how much water your plants are getting with a drip system you may have calculated what you think it needs but you need to go and check the soil conditions to get everything dialed in. Just like a lawn sprinkling system you need to actually check and adjust based on the conditions of the plants. After a season or so you will know what the timings should be.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

To try not to overcomplicate things, you can break up drip zones based on how often you water, and choose the number and type of emitters per plant (or length of emitter tubing around the plants) to control how much water.

So, for example, with only two available zones, flowers get a zone and shrubs / small trees get a zone. From there, full sun areas get emitters with more flow or more emitters per plant than less sunny areas. If a plant is drying out more than others on the same zone, pop in another emitter for it.

As far as 1/2" blank tubing length, I have a zone in my back yard with 211 emitters at 2 GPH each with a total length well over 500' (total flow approx 7 GPM). Inlet pressure regulated with one of those Amazon RV pressure regulators and filter is a Rainbird inline filter. Inlet pressure set to about 35 psi. It's a long zone that's definitely pushing the envelope but it works fine.


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## zeroibis (Sep 28, 2020)

Delmarva Keith said:


> To try not to overcomplicate things, you can break up drip zones based on how often you water, and choose the number and type of emitters per plant (or length of emitter tubing around the plants) to control how much water.


Correct, thank you for making this clear. Mine makes it seem you can not mix the types of plants but it is just that I have a lot of areas with groups of plants that are all the same that have very different requirements for when they need to be watered.


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## coloradom1212 (Aug 3, 2021)

Thanks for the input. I am thinking to start with using the two zones I have and adjusting with the type/layout of emitters, and then I can always adapt or add other zones down the line.


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