Hi,

Take a look at DripworksUSA.com. They have a design section, FAQ, and kits.

If you can't work out what you need, I am sure the forum can help you with a basic list as many of us use drip.

Cheers,
Michelle

Here is a link that might be useful: Dripworks USA

If you call Dripworks, they'll give you advice to set one up. I've had numerous dealings with then for various reasons and have always been pleased.
Yes they have kits.
I'd start small and add to it as I gained experience. It's easy to add onto a drip system and to correct mistakes made by learning with a smaller system. That's what I did. My system was always in a state of improvement and enlarging. Drip systems are easy to work with and add to.

I'm glad I ran into this, as it looks like Dripworks has a nice set up. As an alternative, I've ordered everything for years from Peaceful Valley (groworganic.com) and continue to order from there.

You can run 3/4" pvc pipe and some sprinkler heads. Lowes and Home Depot have the kits, material and sales people to help with any questions you have. Bonne chance, T

Dripworks looks perfect. Are the Shrubblers worth it? That seems to be the major difference between the rose kit and the other kits. Their instructions are very clear and seem easy to follow.

I've looked at Home Depot and Menards and Jungs (no Lowes around here) and they didn't have a nice, simple kit like the one on Dripworks. I didn't want sprinkler heads either since I didn't want to get the leaves wet. Jungs had some drip emitters but the only kit they had came with misting heads rather than drip. I think for me it will be easier to start with a kit and then add on to it once I see how it works.

Thank you for the help.

I use DripWorks systems to water 99% of all my rose beds. This has proven to be the simplest, and cost effective, i.e.cheap, LOL, way to water my 200+ roses. I can also hook up my fertilizer injector to my drip system to feed Miracle-Gro to my roses when it is that time of the month to do it.
Believe me, when you get this many roses a drip system is definitley the way to go. And yes, I use the shrubblers. Each rosebush has it's own shrubbler so I can regulate the amount each one gets. Some people simply use a syphon attachement to add fertilizer, so use whatever you want when it comes to feeding time.
The folks at DripWorks are very helpful and will help you set up your system if you ask for their assistance in doing so.
This is well worth the effort.
John

This summer I finally installed my basic rose kit from Dripworks. I have had it for a couple of years but just didn't know where to start. It is really easy to do. I love those shrubbers. I ordered a bunch more shrubbers and am getting those hooked up.
Dawn

I bought the rose kit and some extra hose and extra Shrubblers. I think I'll even do the plants around my deck since that is on the way to the main rose bed. Once I get it set up I figure it will save me a lot of time and I might finally have a chance to get caught up on the weeding instead of having to water.

Just a note - I could not get a Syphonject feeder to work on a drip system. Syponject requires a certain amount of pressure to work, and the pressure regulator for drip caused it not to work. I bought one of the injection feeders for my drip system and haven't used it yet. :-)

AthenaInWi, I think you will love the system. They do take some monitoring, but they save soooo much time.

Cheers,
Michelle

Dripworks is good. You just send them a schematic and they do the rest.

Carla

I did all that last yr. I work at an Ace Hardware store and drip/sprinkler parts are one of our biggest selling products. It's a lot of work putting the hose and drip lines in, but once it's all done, it's great! First of all, if you're going to put a timer on, you have to check your water pressure. If you have anything over about 50psi, you'll have to put a pressure reducer on. I had 110psi and blew off a water timer within about 4 seconds of turning the water on! Some of the drip system pressure reducers are just too low. Most of them are 20psi or 30psi. That's waaay too low if you have a lot of lines going out. I have 4 lines on three different faucets. I used the brass pressure reducer we carry for RVs, which is 45psi, and it's perfect for all the lines. Except where I have one line going uphill, I ended up having to take it off the automatic timer and onto full-pressure with a manual wind-up timer because there just wasn't enough pressure to put out the sprays I wanted.

Oh, and I ended up replacing a lot of my drip emitters with little spray heads and also had to add risers this yr because of the amount of growth the roses put on since last yr. I started with adjustable sprayers, but ended up replacing most of them with simple half and full sprayheads. You can get different psi sprays, and you have to just try them til you get the right spray. I happen to like the sprayers better than the drippers because they get a better coverage. Plus, all the areas where I had emitters, the roses don't get washed off and I ended up with massive amounts of spider webs all over the roses (not spider mites... spiders!).

Anyway, it's something you will be working on constantly. You often have to replace parts and change out emitters or sprayers. So make sure you get extra parts to keep on hand. Sometimes something will blow off and you have to be ready to replace the part fast. Also make sure you keep goof-plugs on hand. Sometimes you end up having to move a drip line and then you have to plug up the old hole. I would also suggest using a pair of those Atlas nitrile-coated stretchy gloves. I have carpal tunnel and it's hard for me to push all the parts together. The grippy gloves make it so much easier to get them to slide together easier. When I first started working on my system, my hands were killing me after a few days. But then, I probably have a lot more areas covered than what you'll be doing!!

Well, good luck, and hey, if you have a local Ace Hardware store, go check them out. I'm sure if they're anything like ours, they should have people there who know how to do this and can help you. It's much easier to understand what's needed when you see all the parts in person. And buying the loose parts in bulk is better than buying a kit. You often end up with lots of parts you don't need, or they don't give you enough of other parts you DO need!

Good question! This is something I am currently dealing with. I got tired of watering my roses twice a day by hand (116 degree temps), so I decided it was time to add drip lines to my existing system for the roses. I knew I had to add an additional valve to the timer, because the roses have to be watered much more often than my other desert friendly shrubs. I enlisted my friend to help, who is a sort of handyman extraordinaire, and we went to Home Depot and picked up a valve, drip parts, PVC pipe, shrubblers, and more. $150 later, and two more trips to HD to get more parts we didn't have but needed, we started installing the whole thing. I had to give up after it got dark, and didn't have all the holes punched in the lines and all of the shrubblers hooked up, but figured I would get up bright and early in the a.m. to finish. I got out there at 6:30 this morning to find the lawn sprinklers going, as they should, but also the rose shrubblers I had got in before dark also going full force, and the rose area fully flooded. I turned off the sprinklers, but the little shrubblers just kept right on going. Next I turned off the whole timer system, and still they kept sprinkling away. Finally I turned off the emergency shut off valves at the water source, and the flooding stopped. I called my friend, and he is going to have to drive all the way back here (45 miles) to figure out where we went wrong, and what we have to do to fix it. In the meantime, not only am I back to hand watering the roses, but every other plant and tree I have too, since I have to keep the valves shut off to avoid more drowning of the rose garden.

Good luck with yours. I'm sure it's easier putting it in from scracth than trying to attach to an already existing system.

Oh duh... I was in such a hurry to get this posted so I could get outside... I just realized I made a boo-boo. The sprayers and emitters are rated at "gph" not "psi!" You can get different rates of emitters and sprayers from 1/2 gallon per hour to 30 gallons per hour. Anyway, again good luck! You'll be so glad you did this once you're all done. My roses took off like weeds within a few weeks. I used to hand water everything. Now I just have a few pot ghettos and other areas that I haven't quite finished up yet.

I put together the drip system yesterday. It was easy to install and my husband was quite impressed with it. It took a while though as it is exhausting trying to work on it on the hill in the mulch so I had to take some breaks. It's very nice and works well. I'll have to order some more parts to finish it as I ended up hooking up everything and ran low on shrubblers by the end. It's so much better than trying to get the hose up the hill and it should help out the roses a lot as I was never sure they were getting enough water.

I also recommend dripworks. This stuff ain't cheap, but it will save you an enormous amount of time over the long haul. Figure about 8 hours to set up your first bed of about 30 roses. After that, you could set up your next bed in 2 about hours. And the next in about 1 1/2 hours.
Al

I've put in drip irrigation for my hot, dry, windy roofdeck. There's some math involved (you can't distribute more water than you actually have), but that one day of hard work saves ten or twenty times as many hours over the course of a summer. It also makes it easier to get someone to watch the plants when I'm on vacation -- just flip a switch every couple few days.

I picked up my equipment through a place called something like The Drip Store.

It makes life SO much easier. I'm a big fan of the drip irrigation.