Three Benefits of Drip Irrigation
Drip irrigation systems, as their name would indicate, are a type of residential and commercial irrigation system that drip water into the soil of your landscape at a very slow rate. This method of water delivery gives drip irrigation systems a distinctive set of benefits when compared to traditional spray head systems. Knowing what a drip irrigation system has to offer your landscape's plant life can help you decide if you should have such an irrigation system installed on your property.
Easy Installation
Drip irrigation systems are made out of what are basically hoses that have small holes in them. This allows for a small amount of water to leak out over time, but requires no specialized equipment or digging to install. These hoses can be simply woven through the plant life across your landscape, reducing installation costs and the amount of disruption that your property will experience. In a similar vein, you can easily adjust your drip irrigation system by picking the hoses up and moving them to a new area, which makes your landscaping design choices more flexible than a permanently installed irrigation or sprinkler system.
Increased Water Efficiency
Another thing to note about drip irrigation systems is that since they are installed so close to the ground, there is little risk of the water being wasted because the wind was able to blow it away or because it sat on the leaves of your plants for an extended period and was allowed to evaporate. Instead, water is directly leaked into the soil, which means that your plants have increased access to it almost immediately. Not only does this improve the overall environmental friendliness of your landscape—a must if you live in hotter climates—but it also improves the health of your plants by increasing the soil absorption wait and reduces your monthly water bills by using less water.
Weed Reduction
An additional key benefit of drip irrigation systems over comparable sprinkler and irrigation alternatives is that drip systems are much better at preventing weeds from sprouting up in your garden. This is because water is only delivered to the areas immediately around your existing plants, instead of being sprayed over a large area. This helps you localize and reduce your water use, as already mentioned, but also means that you won't have to worry about errant plants that you'll need to remove later popping up.
Call an irrigation installation professional for more information about irrigation systems.