Landscape contractor Lee Gilliam teaches host Kevin O’Connor all about sprinkler heads, including the types, how they work, and how he likes to set them up around plants, trees, and yards.
Irrigation is Important
Many homeowners might think of irrigation as an unnecessary luxury. But, it’s actually quite important for protecting your investment. If you’re spending money each year on lawn care and landscaping, irrigation can help keep your money from going to waste. Irrigation is also the most efficient way to water your plants and lawn, especially if you choose the right sprinkler heads.
Types of Sprinkler Headers
There are a few different types of sprinklers, including pop-up sprinklers, rotary heads, and sprinklers that attach to the end of a garden hose. There are even drip hoses, which have small holes that allow water to lightly drip out.
Pop-Up Sprinklers
Pop-up sprinklers come in a few varieties, including taller models that reach over plants, and smaller models that work for different lawn sizes and shapes. These sprinkler heads hide underground so they don’t get in the way of mowing, but pop up and water the garden when they experience water pressure.
Rotary Sprinklers
Rotary sprinklers are also in-ground models, though they don’t sit as flush as pop-up heads. These models can spray a lot of water at relatively high pressure, making them ideal for yards but less ideal for flower beds.
Note: Both rotary and pop-up sprinklers have swappable nozzles that change the amount of water and the direction and shape of the spray.
Manual Hose-end Sprinklers
There are many types of hose-end sprinklers. Gentle flow models simply hook to a hose and sit in the garden bed, creating a soft flow of water. Oscillating sprinklers spray a large, wide fan across a wide area. Pulsating sprinklers are powerful and spray water long distances.
Drip Hose
A drip hose isn’t a sprinkler, but it doesn’t make short work of watering trees and shrubs. These thin hoses have small emitter holes that release water into the soil, making it a great choice for trees and shrubs.
Resources
Lee Gilliam uses rotors on bigger lawns to efficiently cover large areas of grass. For grassy spaces near fragile plants Lee prefers the oscillating fan for its delicate water delivery method. To throw water among taller plants in flower beds, Lee uses pop-up sprays.
Some other sprinkler heads that Lee showed were: