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Each plant in a home landscape requires water to thrive. You as a homeowner want to ensure that each plant get what they need without wasting water on areas that don't need it or plants that require less.
An Irrigation system:
1) Allows you to ensure all of your landscape gets the water that it needs at regular intervals to survive drought and heat and thrive.
2) Allows you to water certain areas called zones for longer duration resulting in more water to certain plants that may need it.
3) Prevents unnecessary watering of areas that don't need water.
4) You can set the schedule and the system will automatically water each area (zone) according to the schedule set in the irrigation controller.
Note on different water needs of landscape plants:
Once established shrubs and trees in the home landscape do not require a significant amount of water. In a well designed irrigation system the shrub beds should have a separate zone to ensure they are not overwatered. Established shrubs will do well with 1/2 inch of water a week. Many time shrubs planted around a home will get too much water because of the foundation of the house, rainfall on house collects around the bushes and shrubs may often be shaded by the house or trees nearby. Overwatering shrubs is one of the primary causes of plant failure.
Lawns are generally the largest consumer of water in the home landscape. A healthy stand of turfgrass requires approximately 1 inch of water per week. Turfgrass may require more irrigation during periods of intense heat or extended drought. Water lawns infrequently but deeply. Turfgrass will develop a shallow root system if watered everyday for a few minutes, this creates a problem when it is stressed in the summer heat and drought or when it is combatting disease or insect infestation because it lacks the structure and support system the roots provide to overcome these challenges, rather water less days each week but water for longer periods of time, this will allow the water to absorb deep into the soil and the dry period between watering will encourage the grass to deepen its root system to reach more moisture.
Annual/perennial beds. Annuals often require water every day as the leaves transpirate water at a rapid rate and are often placed in area where they are subjected to intense sunlight or heat radiating surfaces.
Container plants. Any plant, whether annual or perennial, planted in container will require regular watering as containers tend to lack well developed soil structure to hold moisture and nutrients. Containers placed in the sun can stress plants because of the heat and limited soil to draw moisture from. A drip system that can supply measured amounts of water to each container work best.