Drip Irrigation & Bed Watering in Middle Tennessee

Turf wants a moderate amount of water fairly often across a wide area. Shrubs and perennials want a deeper soak less frequently, delivered at the base of the plant. Putting both on the same zone means one of them is always wrong, and usually it is the beds getting sprayed just enough to keep the mulch wet and the roots dry.

A dedicated drip zone with proper pressure regulation and filtration solves it, and it typically uses a fraction of the water the equivalent spray coverage would.

Clay soil accepts water slowly. Blast it with spray and most of it runs off before it penetrates, which is how shrubs sitting in supposedly watered beds still end up drought stressed. Drip applies water slowly enough that clay can actually take it in.

It also keeps water off siding and brick, which matters right against the foundation.

If you already have irrigation, converting a bed zone to drip or adding a new drip zone is straightforward when the controller has a spare station and the water supply supports it. We check both before quoting.

Spray heads throw water over the top of a planting bed. Much of it lands on leaves, evaporates in July heat, or hits mulch and runs off, and the water that does reach the soil arrives at a rate the bed cannot absorb. Wet foliage overnight also encourages disease on shrubs and perennials.

Drip puts water at the root zone slowly enough to soak in. Runtimes are longer and frequency is lower, which suits shrubs and foundation plantings far better than the short cycles a lawn wants. That is why beds belong on their own zone even when they sit right next to the turf.