Just adding to the thread after a season or so of running most of summer on entirely a watering system.
Background:
I was due to head out of town for around 8 weeks with 2 days in-between that we would be home between the trips about 2 weeks in (international travel, June/July/August), and historically I've had terrible luck with someone "minding" my trees. While we had someone coming to the house (or staying at the house) every day, it just was a lot to ask / trust someone and I don't have any bonsai folks who live close or could do so for that long. Each time we've travelled I've lost at least 1 plant when the time away was over a week. So... I did the worst thing I could possibly have done, I emergency built out a system in a rush (because clearly I plan well). I ordered a ton of stuff from Drip Depot (+1 to their selection and their customer service, both of which have been stellar), and a few days before I left I set it up (don't do what I did, it was stupid to do this days before I left). This system is a "temp" system that I put together one night (like maybe 5 hours total) a few days before leaving, and is not the final system that'll be in place when my bonsai benches finally land.
I have around 50 or so trees in various stages of development, but with a leaning towards early development, and I have very few conifers. Around 5 or so are *large* trees (think on the edge of what a single larger human can work), with only around 5 or so being in the smaller end of the scale (Shohin / Mame). A large portion of my trees are still in various potting mixtures (and some are even in nursery pots with potting soil), with some in either the Bonsai Jack organic mixture, or a 1:1:1 APL. All trees will be moved to 2:1:1, or 1:1:1 mixture in some form or another with their next repotting. I also had some moss that I had placed randomly over some potting mix in a few colanders to see if I could coax it to grow (which it did).
I have minimal irrigation experience, but I'm an engineer, I have YouTube, how hard could it be?
System:
Given that this was a temp system, and I wanted to be able to lay things out specifically, I moved all my trees to my deck, and ran wood under the lines to be able to secure the main / service lines. I went with 1/2in "main" line from my hose bib on the standard outdoor faucet (split so I can use it for other stuff too). There is a backflow preventer, pressure regulator, and filter. The main line then had a T connector to run further 1/2in "service" line between each row of trees. Along each of the "service" lines I would split off 1/8in drip line to a single Spot-Spitter. The spot spitters are broken out into various GPH categories. I ordered 10 of each of the "short" ones, 10 of each of the "tall" ones, 10 of each of the "regular" ones, and 50 of each of the "downspray" standard length ones.
For control, I added the Rachio hose timer to the main line, and set it to a daily schedule. During the peak of summer (>100F) I would run it twice a day, and during it's entire run I would run it once a day. In the morning (5-6 am) it would run for 15 minutes, and the afternoon run was set to the same for the couple of weeks I used them. I would use cameras and the local weather app(s) to check and adjust accordingly. The rachio was the right choice for me because I preferred the app and had read horror stories about their app in general. I also wanted the option to use other weather monitoring systems should I want to and it was on special for dirt cheap when I was shopping. I had it set to skip watering when there was expected precipitation which I would then manually monitor with my cameras and adjust accordingly.
I had 2 of the highest GPH (17.4) rating downspray standard ones in each of my big trees, and then usually 1 of the downspray standard length lower flow rate ones (13.2, 11.4, 7.2) to each of the other trees. Some of the pots were too shallow to have a standard length one, and in those cases I used the short sprayers. For some of the nursery pots I had trouble getting the standard length ones to stay in the spot I was putting them, so I used the longer ones pushed in deeper to get the right location and keep them stable. Some were secured using aluminium wire, but I ended up removing most of them as they didn't improve the stability much at all.
I had a few Ring cameras set up that I could monitor remotely, as well as a temperature monitor to get the local area's temp. I had a second battery operated Ring camera that could be placed more locally, and could monitor specific trees if needed.
Outcome:
So what happened... Everything went along swimmingly. I did not loose a single tree, and a few of the trees that had more compacted / less ideal soil looked happier when I got back (probably telling me something about how I was hand watering those). I did not find any that seemed to be suffering from overwatering or any issues with the root system. It was not hands off, and I did have to pay attention, but I could do so remotely. I did have someone that I could send out to get specific pics of trees when I was wondering if there was a change to the tree's behavior which helped immensely, however I didn't have to make any real changes to the system while I was out of town. The best part of having them on the deck with a camera was I could easily tell if the water was spraying correctly due to the color difference on the deck.
The biggest issue I had was the landscapers trying to be helpful would use their blowers to remove debris between the rows (I did ask them not to, but when the main guy wasn't around, they'd be back!) and move the spot spitters. Sometimes they'd completely knock them out. This was all a quick fix, and after I asked the sitter to go out with the camera(s) I could easily mark which ones were misbehaving and once a week or so I would start the system for a minute to make sure they were spraying as expected (either having the sitter video it, or using the cameras). I did have fertilizer that was placed in the path of the spray and those seemed to work swimmingly too.
Future:
I just recently finished pulling the system down and I have a few updates I want to make for the final version. I can say that I want one ongoing, the wonderful parts are really just making sure that water is always provided for the trees in the morning irrespective of if I'm traveling, had a rough night, etc.. I'm likely going to use it as my early morning summer watering system and then ad-hoc add watering later / throughout the day (and modify the amount of water provided by modifying the spot spitter when checking the trees). I don't think I'm ready to give up watering just yet, but having some amount of augmented automation has really given me piece of mind.
Here's the stuff I'm thinking about for the permanent system:
While the water pressure looked fine, I really do think that having multiple lines to split things up and make sure that there are no unexpected drops in pressure would be ideal, so I will likely move to either a system per group / section, or a system for the bonsai, and a system for pre-bonsai. As things grow, there isn't a great way to tell if you're OK with water pressure, or not. Once you run out, it's a pain in the ass to run a second line. Planning for it up front with the shape of your garden in mind seems like a far better choice.
The pre-bonsai / seedling / etc... trees being watered by spot spitters feels awfully inefficient, and it seems that this part of my collection is growing far faster. These also seem to increase/decrease far faster, thus focusing on flexibility in that area of my garden seems like a far better idea. I might move to above tree sprayers or perhaps something that isn't a line-per-pot/tree.
The system is not currently setup to empty / seal / unseal between waterings, and that feels like a great idea. I'm intending on ending each of the lines with a low spot and a vacuum relief valve.
and... some more of the random ideas I've had:
- Fertilizing (or chemical spraying in general) seems like it might be useful, but not as a constant thing, but rather as an on-demand thing (i.e. I know I need to do it, so I have a line that's using overhead sprayers and an injector of some sort that I can use on-demand for garden-wide applications). Not sure what the plan here will be, but who knows.
- I'm planning on doing some raised bed grow areas, and for those I may just run drip tape / drip emitters.
- I'll likely also build a frame of some sort around the whole garden to be able to use shade cloth as I'm building it out, and it would also be nice to have a misting system to keep the area cool when I'm in there during summer, turns out, same stuff can do both
(https://www.dripdepot.com/category/misting-cooling)
Let me know if anyone has any questions, and keep in mind I'm in NJ, my climate, my trees, are unique to me, and what works for me, might not work for you. As I unify my soil, as my trees develop, as the location I've got my trees changes, this all may change my feelings on this. A special thank you to all the YouTube folks (
@bluesky for example) for all the videos and posts about their systems which helped me quickly piece together what I wanted to do.
