How to Use your system
Where to plant
Where possible plant next to the drippers in your dripper pipe. You can locate drippers by the small holes in the dripper pipe as you can see in the photo.
Newly planted plants have not yet established a root system and are very vulnerable. Planting next to drippers is the most important thing you can do to nurse them through this venerable stage. As plants establish their roots spread through the soil and can access water over a much wider area and depth. Hence, it becomes much less important where the dripper is in relation to the plant.
You can shift the pipe around to get it into position and weigh it down with a brick for a few days if it doesn't initially want to sit as you place it.
low maintenance, can be buried or stay in sun. Doesn't get clogged on town water, and very rarely on tank water unless particularly dirty or contianing algae, grey water systems can clog the pipe, periodic flushing can fix this.
pull up pipe periodically
don't add micro sprays etc
How much to water
This really depends on the type of garden that you have. My recommendations for the Canberra summer are below. I suggest spring and autumn to reduce this to 50% and winter to 10%. (Hunter hydrawise and Toro DDC controllers will allow these seasonal adjustments to be programmed automatically, other controllers you need to do it manually every season using the "season adjust' function)
Canberra Summer Run Times
Lush water greedy garden
Sprinklers: 1 hour a week
Dripper pipe: (2lph) 3 hours a week
Normal Garden
Sprinklers: 40 minutes a week
Dripper pipe: (2lph) 1.5 hours a week
Water minimising garden (probably native)
Dripper pipe (2lph): 30 minutes a week
Irrigation can be used to keep alive, and promote growth of, new plantings that once established can survive without irrigation, or only need it during severe drought.
Frequency
I generally recommend watering three times a week but it doesn't seem to be that important for most things. You can break your watering up into small watering sessions everyday or water once a week in a single block. For sprinklers however, it is probably more efficient to water less frequently as more water may penetrate the soil and less is likely to evaporates off plant and soil surface.
When to water
In Canberra's hot and dry climate it's it's best to water at night or in the early morning to reduce evaporative losses due to the heat of the sun. This is especially true when using sprinklers and probably not so important when using drip irrigation.
Another consideration is having the system programmed to turn on at a time when you will occasionally observe it. This means you can pick up issues such as breaks in the pipe that create fountains or that the system is not turning on at all.
Very serious gardeners might want to think about specific plant preferences. Some plants, such as tomatoes, can develop root rot issues when soil is left too moist. They can benefit from an early morning water as opposed to an evening watering. This for most people though is not hugely important.
How to Maintain your system
Dripper pipe - Lift your pipe every few years
In this image you can see a pipe which has been buried under tree roots. Over time if it isn't lifted to the surface it is likely to be strangled, impossible to pull to the surface and a totally mystery as to what is happening. Once this happens it is much easier to replace than repair.
I suggest irrigation system owners lift their dripper pipe to the surface every 3 to 5 years. If you don't want to have your pipe visible you can do this just before you apply a new layer of mulch. Dripper pipe is extremely resistant to UV so can sit on the surface. It's also resistant to getting clogged by roots or dirt so can be buried. What overwhelmingly causes it to fail is strangulation by roots and kinking. If it's buried and impossible to pull up because of roots growing over the top you can determine where constrictions in the pipe have occurred. This is the most common reason I have to replace dripper pipe. If you prevent it getting buried and strangled your dripper pipe should last you decades.
Dripper pipe - Don't use pegs
When dripper pipe is initially laid down it will not sit exactly as you want it. You can use old bricks or rocks to hold dripper pipe in place until it settles into it's new shape. On a hot day you can remove weight from the pipe in as little as half an hour, certainly within a couple of weeks you can remove weights and pipe will not shift from it's position of it's own accord. As long as you don't kink the pipe you can get it to sit in quite tight bends using this technique.
Using pegs to hold it in place is standard practice and looks quite neat in the first instance. I strongly suggest avoiding pegs as much as possible. In the short term it works fine but down the track it will make it much more difficult to pull dripper pipe to the surface and greatly increase the risk of kinking or strangulation of the pipe by plant roots. See photo for example.
