I have a typical 1500 sq ft ranch home in the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin. The previous owners let all plantings get wildly out of control and quite honestly, the entire perimeter of the house was surrounded by larger shrubs that were not my style.
I removed all the old plantings and started from scratch last year. On all 4 sides of the home there are flower and small shrub beds that basically surround the home and project about 10 ft out on average. I have re-planted the majority of this area with new, young, and small plantings. Some shrubs, some flowers, some grasses, plants, etc.
I also have two larger garden areas in the yard and a vegtable area behind a shed. These also need revitalizing but I've only gotten to these areas slightly right now.
Now the fun - the home only has one outdoor water spigot so to date all my watering has been by hand and with 400ft of hose to reach all areas. Yes, all that hose is a pain, but not bad compared to the time it takes to just water these areas. I can and likely will install a 2nd and potentially 3rd outdoor spigot which means less hose handling at once. However, it really won't cut down my time.
I need to find a way to keep the young plants well watered in much less time. I have never used soaker or drip arrangements and such and I'm lookin for info. I would like this year to setup say the soaker arrangment to loop around and water the perimeter of the house.
How well do these work? How much lenght can I do? Pressure concerns? Can one splice in non-soaker type tubing when running across areas that need no water? I'd like to bury it under my mulch and leave it. Is this problematic or generally ok? Will these things survive well over a winter? I'm willing to take the time to install a proper system that works well and looks good while not shifting my time effort into having to maintain the water lines and connections. I would either via timer or personal effort turn on the water flow and let it water the perimeter of the house while I water other areas. I do not want to extend the system to other areas beyond the perimeter of the house at least for another two to three years. I enjoy tending to the other areas, just can't handle it all time wise due to circumstances. Can anyone point me to resources or websites that might help me learn, install, and answer questions on this? Any good pointers or bad experiences?
thanks!