Good afternoon dear all,
I would like to ask all the irrigation designers here in the forum, what is the most effecient irrigation system you are following for a movable planter or pot with tree size 100L or size 60L from your experience?
What are ypur main consideration while designing a case like this?
Thanks in advance,
Nibal
Nibal,
Thank you for sending this example. So, in my experience you have 3 main ways to water things like this:
- Hand water- Typically there is an onsite staff that handles this responsibility, especially with as little as 13 locations, it isn't a lot of time for this. This is also the most flexible, in that you aren't locked into having a specific water source location (like options 2 & 3 below) dedicated to each pot. There are also great helper features you could use in this instance, meaning, the type of soil you use or container styles you go with. There are several soil mediums out there that absorb and hold more moisture than typical soil, specifically for pots so you don't have to water them as much. Certain pots also might come with set reservoir to hold additional water that way.
- Irrigation stub on outside of pot- This would be still somewhat limiting from a movable standpoint, but a little more flexible in that you could shift the pots away from the water source if needed, and still run the irrigation to them. The issues you would need to consider when doing this is:
- Vandalism- Once you have an exposed pipe, people have a tendency to play with it, which could lead to broken things.
- Trip hazards- An exposed pipe coming our of the ground already increases the chance of someone tripping and falling over it, but once you move that pot further from the water source, you need to run a tube from the fixed pipe over to that pot which would make for an even bigger trip hazard.
- Aesthetics- What look are you going for? I assume the client would not want pipes coming out of the ground with strands of pipe going everywhere. So caution with this.
- Irrigation type- Similar to what look you are going for, the type of irrigation used will affect how you will be able to get the water to the pot, and what look and vandalism level you open yourself up to.
- Irrigation stub through the middle of the pot- This would be the most permanent since the pipe would be coming directly through the center of the pot on rigid pipe. You could then run the desired irrigation type from there (bubblers, dripline, point source emitters, even sprays depending on pot size). Makes for a nice clean install and look though.
Again, these are my initial thoughts for options you have. I would love to see what others are doing and have done. Good luck!
Regards
Nibal,
I will go ahead and chime in while we wait for others to respond as well ;)
Just a few questions to get the ball rolling here:
- Can you be a bit more specific to what the "movable" part of you question deals with? Is the system going to be moving a lot? Or just that you are trying to water something that is in a pot, so it is not the typical "in the ground irrigation" that you are used to?
- Are these items on a rooftop or any other unique location? Or simply on the ground, say around a pool or entryway?
- What is the QTY of locations like this?
- How big are these movable items?
- What is your water source? Clean or dirty (potable vs non potable)
Regards,
Nibal,
Thank you for sending this example. So, in my experience you have 3 main ways to water things like this:
- Hand water- Typically there is an onsite staff that handles this responsibility, especially with as little as 13 locations, it isn't a lot of time for this. This is also the most flexible, in that you aren't locked into having a specific water source location (like options 2 & 3 below) dedicated to each pot. There are also great helper features you could use in this instance, meaning, the type of soil you use or container styles you go with. There are several soil mediums out there that absorb and hold more moisture than typical soil, specifically for pots so you don't have to water them as much. Certain pots also might come with set reservoir to hold additional water that way.
- Irrigation stub on outside of pot- This would be still somewhat limiting from a movable standpoint, but a little more flexible in that you could shift the pots away from the water source if needed, and still run the irrigation to them. The issues you would need to consider when doing this is:
- Vandalism- Once you have an exposed pipe, people have a tendency to play with it, which could lead to broken things.
- Trip hazards- An exposed pipe coming our of the ground already increases the chance of someone tripping and falling over it, but once you move that pot further from the water source, you need to run a tube from the fixed pipe over to that pot which would make for an even bigger trip hazard.
- Aesthetics- What look are you going for? I assume the client would not want pipes coming out of the ground with strands of pipe going everywhere. So caution with this.
- Irrigation type- Similar to what look you are going for, the type of irrigation used will affect how you will be able to get the water to the pot, and what look and vandalism level you open yourself up to.
- Irrigation stub through the middle of the pot- This would be the most permanent since the pipe would be coming directly through the center of the pot on rigid pipe. You could then run the desired irrigation type from there (bubblers, dripline, point source emitters, even sprays depending on pot size). Makes for a nice clean install and look though.
Again, these are my initial thoughts for options you have. I would love to see what others are doing and have done. Good luck!
Regards
Jake,
i'll go with the most suitable option number 3 which is Irrigation stub through the middle of the pot,
but would like your advice from your experience for the most effective irrigation type to be used to water a tree in a pot with container size 100 L
1- POP UP bubbler + RWS
2- POP UP bubbler only
3- RWS only
4- Tree Ring
5- Emitter
thank you
Nibal
Nibal,
Here is the real answer...It totally depends on what you are going for! All options you listed are completely valid and could work, but personally I like the tree ring (#4) option. But any install type you go with, it would be recommended that a drain pipe gets installed so you can see how much water is sitting in your pot (assuming the pot will not have holes in the bottom), and so you can use a pump to suck out standing water so your plants don't die.
I hope that helps. Good luck!
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