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Irrigation
Sunday, 22 May 2011 17:35 | 
Written by Administrator | 
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Just like humans, plants need water to survive, to produce seeds, flowers and new stems for our enjoyment and relaxation. Humans can survive 2-3 days without water; plants can survive only a little bit longer. Over the years we all have noticed changes in our gardens and dry conditions are creeping on us as we speak.Summer rainfall has either been too much or too little and has not quite found a good balance. This is why cutting-hedge.com has opened our new department to save our gardens.
Pots need watering every week and in summer every 3rd day, lawn every 3 to 4 days with a sprinkler and plants about the same as the lawn. With over watering (all in one go) you will find the soil in London does not absorb all the water as the soil is either clay or fine silt based and runs off. This happens in most cases on lawns and flowerbeds that have not be aerated, top dressed or mulched with horse manure in spring.
The solution is shorter bursts of watering (around 3 to 4 times) of about 5 minutes during the day keeping moisture to its maximum growing condition. If you don’t have the time to walk around with a watering can or hose, I suggest you get one off our many types of irrigation systems available today. Not only will you notice a greener garden but also it will make sure you have a green healthy thick lawn right through the year.
Designing your irrigation system is as individual as your garden is.Having plants that require more or less water, pots or just the lawn, we at cutting-hedge.com will make sure it perfectly matches your garden. Let’s see how our professional irrigation system looks like, what are the main elements of it:
Source of water: usually tap water. The amount of the water (litre / minute) determines the number of sprinklers. There is another option, using a water tank and pump (see below)
· The water pressure determines the type of sprinkler to be used. Each sprinkler has its own use.
· These two things (amount of water, and pressure) shows us how many sprinklers can irrigate at the same time. The more water we have in a minute the more sprinklers can work together.
· To divide the water between the sprinklers we use a solenoid electric valve. These electric valves are connected to a computer, timer, and controller by a special low voltage cable.
· Each electric valve guides one specific zone of sprinklers.
· The computer, timer and controller give you a wide range of possibilities to adjust the irrigation (start time, minutes per zone, watering days etc.)
· We highly recommend using a rain sensor to avoid over watering. This sensor is connected to the computer, controller and timer, and stops the irrigation in the event of rain.
· Each valve is connected to a pipeline, which can go under, or over ground. For beds and pots, or window boxes usually they go over ground. For pop-up sprinklers they go underground.
· The next element is the most important part of the system: sprinklers.
· There is a huge amount of different types of sprinklers available.
· According to your garden and plants we can recommend the type of sprinklers that would fit best.
· For beds, pots, window boxes we usually use micro spray sprinklers, or micro drip system. These parts are very small, sometimes hidden by plants, and mostly black, so they are almost invisible but very useful. They use only a small amount of water, so more than 2 or 3 can work together in the same zone according to the amount of water available mentioned above.
· The micro drip system looks like a pipe but the sprinklers are built in and almost invisible. Only a small hole can be seen. These pipes can go under bark chips too.· All these materials are made of special plastic, which will not damage your garden.
· We suggest pop –up sprinklers for lawn, or bigger beds. These sprinklers are underground and come up only during irrigation. For professional irrigation these sprinklers must irrigate head to head.
· All these sprinklers come with a different number of nozzles. The nozzle determinates the radius and the amount of water used.
· To install all these elements we must use fittings. These plastic parts are mostly hidden.
If you would like more information on how we can solve your watering problems and save you 100s of pounds each year please contact cutting-hedge.com This is a brief example how we will design a professional irrigation system for you.
Measure the water pressure and the flow per litre per minute.
Draw out a plan to show how many zones your garden will need.
If we need to go over ground or underground
How much it would cost
Let’s say we have 20 litres per minute and you have common English garden plants. In this case we can use micro spray sprinklers (they need 4-5 litres per hour) so we have 20 litres per min = 120 litres per hour. 120 / 5 = 24 micro spray heads could work in the same zone. The number of sprinklers depends on the pressure as well and we only need one zone for micro spray sprinklers.
Let’s say your lawn is average size: 5 m x 10 m. The shape of the lawn is also important to how much pop up sprinklers you will need. Each sprinkler must irrigate a part of a circle with a radius of 5 meters. In this case we need 6. Each needs 5 litres per min. We have 20 litres per min. 20/5= 4 sprinklers per zone. We need 6 so it looks better if we use 3 -3 in each zone.
So if you have 5 window boxes this will mean adding an additional zone. All together we need 4 zones. (2 micros and two pop-ups)In this case we need a minimum 4-station controller, or computer, and 4 electric valves and a rain sensor.
As you can see designing a professional irrigation system is quite a complex job.
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Last Updated (Sunday, 22 May 2011 17:46)
