Never Neglect Your Plantings: Irrigation Will Keep Them Properly Hydrated in Lagrangeville, NY
The plants that make up a beautiful landscape all have specific needs when it comes to watering and a one-size-fits-all approach to watering simply won’t cut it. Whether you're standing outside with a garden hose at early hours of the morning, letting a wasteful sprinkler water more of your walkway than the landscape, forgetting to water, or using automatic timers as the only way to control a sprinkler (and watering the lawn during a heavy downpour), you’ll wish you had a better system in place. Here’s how you can never neglect your plantings: irrigation will keep them properly hydrated in Lagrangeville, NY.
Related: 5 Ways an Irrigation System Will Protect Your Landscape Investment in Westchester County, NY
Higher Efficiency and Lower Water Usage
Making sure that each plant gets enough water can be achieved with careful vigilance and knowledge of the needs of each plant. Watering too much is as damaging as watering too little. An irrigation system can be programmed to direct exactly the right amount of water to each planting area to ensure its health - for the best results, this approach will rely on grouping plantings according to their watering requirements although a custom designed irrigation system can help overcome the challenges of watering an established landscape.
Unlike sprinklers which shoot water from a central location, irrigation systems have a series of sprinkler heads with a much smaller range, which allows you to direct water exactly where it’s needed. Each sprinkler head can also be adjusted to fine-tune the process even further, for example away from the home’s foundation and directly onto foundation plantings.
Greater efficiency can dramatically decrease your water usage while ensuring a healthy landscape.
More Accurate Soil Moisture Readings
One of the most challenging aspects of using simple timers on irrigation systems is during rainy periods. Rain sensors will automatically shut off the irrigation system when it’s raining; but if the rain is very short-lived and the ground is parched, you won’t get the best results. A timer alone won’t prevent over-watering - you need to know the moisture levels of the soil and this requires a sensitive moisture sensor.
Choose an irrigation system that features moisture sensors. Moisture sensors are the “secret sauce” to efficient and effective watering. These sensors detect moisture levels in the soil and avoid watering more if the soil is saturated, and deploy exactly the right amount of moisture when it’s necessary - even after a light rain.
Less Water Damage
As water collects and forms pools in depressions around your landscape, it can drown plants that aren’t evolved to thrive in standing water. This could prove to be an expensive fix as the landscape will need to be graded and landscape professionals will have to restore the area. Even without grading, the problem of surface water can be largely eliminated by slower watering that allows water to soak into the soil rather than remaining on the surface.
Better Nutrient Retention
A calibrated irrigation system will release water at a much slower rate to preserve the topsoil. The topsoil contains crucial nutrients that sustain the plants growing in your landscape. When infrequent and overly heavy watering takes place, it can wash away these essential nutrients or even the soil itself. This will work against the needs of plants that require deep and slow watering. A slower flow of water from an irrigation system will ensure that water absorbs deeply into the soil, which helps the soil retain the nutrients.
Related: Lawn Treatment: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Lawn Green in Fishkill and Wappingers Falls, NY