Calling all Gardeners

MotherNature · 05-02-2005, 12:41 PM

Hey Guys,

The house I have moved into has rather expansive gardens that have been prize winning over a few years. I want to keep the gardens as they should be.... The old lady who was here was 80 & I figure if she could keep them going so could I :P

There is a watering system..... the type that is meant to send a spray over the garden but I am only running river water out of a tank & it gravity feeds the system as well as a few other things. The flow of water out of this isnt great at all ...... more a real dribble instead of a flow that spurts out of the little top parts that are meant to spray water....

Would it be prudent to place a pressure pump onto this riverwater tank I have...... is it likely that the pressure would blow out the fittings which I will add are relativly old???????

If theres any knowledgable people out there I will get some piccys of the gardens & you might be able help me identify some of the plants too ;)

RED_EL_XR8 · 05-02-2005, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MotherNature

Hey Guys,

The house I have moved into has rather expansive gardens that have been prize winning over a few years. I want to keep the gardens as they should be.... The old lady who was here was 80 & I figure if she could keep them going so could I :P

There is a watering system..... the type that is meant to send a spray over the garden but I am only running river water out of a tank & it gravity feeds the system as well as a few other things. The flow of water out of this isnt great at all ...... more a real dribble instead of a flow that spurts out of the little top parts that are meant to spray water....

Would it be prudent to place a pressure pump onto this riverwater tank I have...... is it likely that the pressure would blow out the fittings which I will add are relativly old???????

If theres any knowledgable people out there I will get some piccys of the gardens & you might be able help me identify some of the plants too ;)

just have to select the correct pump, a low pressure, low volume one just for the sprinklers even. I'm no expert on hydraulics, mate who is and who lives on property, has snapped up some absolute bargain pumps from e-bay.

tickford2001 · 05-02-2005, 12:56 PM

firstly, congrats on the new house lisa! sounds like a pretty schmicko joint :hihi:

now, as for the watering system, i cant see why you couldnt hook up a pressure pump to the tank - however, make sure when you open the tap to the watering system, open it slowly and only until enough water is coming out to make the system spray - rather than just cranking the tap and blowing all the fittings off. I think you can also get pressure control valves if you wanted to do it that way.

hey if it goes wrong, what have you got to lose? a few spray nozzles? theyre pretty cheap thankfully!

look forward to seeing the pics lisa!

MotherNature · 05-02-2005, 01:20 PM

Coolies guys ;)

Will go out now & get some befor & then hopefully soon a few aftrer shots of the gardens ........

wulos · 05-02-2005, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MotherNature

There is a watering system..... the type that is meant to send a spray over the garden but I am only running river water out of a tank & it gravity feeds the system as well as a few other things. The flow of water out of this isnt great at all ...... more a real dribble instead of a flow that spurts out of the little top parts that are meant to spray water....

May pay to also post a pic of the nozzles as well. I have a suspicion that the nozzles to which you are refering may be part of a drip feeding arrangement anyways - so not like high pressure at all. How was it originally setup, was is setup to allow it to be connected into the town water supply? was it run directly in the gardenbeds? are the nozzles on risers?
High pressure systems tend to waste a lot more water(& can actually damage the plants) then low pressure as well as being less efficient in a lot of cases.

Discovery · 05-02-2005, 02:25 PM

Hmm.. interesting topic. I too have irrigation and animal trough water fed by a rainwater tank. It is slow too (especially as the tank empties). So far it does the job though, just not as quickly.

Piccys for sure

rodderz · 05-02-2005, 03:00 PM

gday lisa

I'de say gravity fed wont have enougn herbs to run the sytem. Depending on the amount of sprays you have and the types you will be able to determine what size and powered pump to get. It is important to not mix sprinkler sizes on the 1 station as they will all require different amounts of water to run them. For example, a lawn will require bigger pop ups than a garden bed.

The best way to sort this out if you already have a pump (or even try this with the existing pressure) is to turn on the nearest tap (which uses the same water source) and see how many litres it pumps out in a minute. To save a bit of water just do 15 seconds then times that by 4 to get the minute reading. You can then ask the local irrigation place whether this is enough pressure to run the sprinklers. Bear in mind you will have to check out how many sprinklers you have, and take note of what model they are, codes/numbers etc will make it easy for the irrigation shop to identify what sort they are.

If the fittings are old....it may be economical in the long run (and they also may be partly blocked too) to get new ones. They will be more effective covering more surface area and will use less water doing so. Try taking off the old heads (they screw off) and run the sytem to flush out any crap, rust etc that may be hampering it. They only thing with replacing them is that some pop ups (particularly gear drives) can be pricey. Check the condition of the pipes too

For the garden beds, if the plants arent too big, you can get some dripper line. You can get either the brown hose with holes in it that just drip when turned on, or you can get the black poly and the spaghetti tubing with points on the end, simply stab it into the poly and run it to each plant where a small spray is attached on the end of the spaghetti tubing.

As for plants...post them up i'll try and do an ID for ya! Otherwise there are plenty of websites with plant photo's on them

MotherNature · 05-02-2005, 03:24 PM

Well I have taken some piccys of the gardens ...... am currently uploading them to my website to save space here ...... theres a few piccys & I havent got all of them online .... this garden is huge ;)

The watering system is one of those black poly pipe with the extensions & sprays ontop ..... I have no idea how many sprayers there are but I will take a stab at over 100 .....

Theres 5 diffrent connectors for 5 hoses to go onto them & most of these cover at least 7 or 8 garden beds ....... there is no system for the lawns ... I do them by hand .......

When the piccys have uploaded I will get some more piccys of the pump I have & the hose & extensions & sprays .....

Thanks heaps for all the info so far guys .... will keep you informed

MotherNature · 05-02-2005, 04:17 PM

OK guys ... the piccys have uploaded to my website ...... www.mothernature.stfocus.net

If you go into the Garden section you ill see how much garden I have to cover ...... theres only 1 area of the garden that has more than 1 piccy there :P

I havent covered all of the garden beds either ...... some of them need a fair bit of attention before I can show them :P

Now for the piccys of the pump & actual watering bts ;)

rodderz · 05-02-2005, 04:47 PM

Geez...fair amount of garden you got there Lisa!

Considering the cost that may come with replacing them it may be worth just seeing whether the system still works and only replace the ones that dont. I noticed some beds have small plants and others larger, the larger planted beds may require taller sprays on risers to get past the foliage thats in the way.

MotherNature · 05-02-2005, 05:29 PM

Yeah thanks Rod,

I have worked out most of the beds water ...... most of the systme works & I have found a few posts that have been blocked .......

My main problem is the lack of pressure to get water onto the plants, as there is, as can be seen, a few beds that are large & the plants arnt getting the water.

This was my reasoning for the possibility of a pump to get the pressure up a bit & hence water to the plants that are lacking it .......

I really appreciate all your help & am adding a few piccys of the actual system so you can see what I mean ;)

The pump I have here is an Onga 25hp I know its been used before to pump water from a bore ......... Im just hopig it isnt going to be too strong

Discovery · 05-02-2005, 09:24 PM

Wow Lisa.. beautiful!

Ours are mostly natives, nice, easy to maintain natives

(lucky, cause the front yard's 2 1/2 acres!)

rag top · 06-02-2005, 12:45 AM

I bet you almost get lost in that garden!

MotherNature · 06-02-2005, 05:59 PM

LOL It is almost possible to get lost at first ........ after hand watering every evening since the begining of December its a bit easier to get around now ...... although when I took the Piccys I had to have a close look at a few of them to see what part of the yard it was ;) .... the piccys I posted were only a few of the 30 odd I took to try to show it all ;)

rodderz · 06-02-2005, 10:03 PM

If the pump is too strong Lisa, just put a flow adjuster in the main line before the sprinklers. That way you can turn the pressure down by a tap on it and it'll close off how much water gets through. Only a few dollars too..just cut the line and join it in!