When it comes to keeping your lawn lush and green, choosing the right sprinkler system makes all the difference. While we always recommend pop-up automatic irrigation as the best option for water efficiency and even coverage, we understand this solution isn’t feasible for everyone.
Let’s explore various sprinkler options available, their benefits, and limitations.
Pop Up Automatic Irrigation: The Gold Standard
Pop-up automatic irrigation will always be our number one recommendation for watering your lawn. There are several reasons for this:
- Water Efficiency: Precisely controlled water distribution minimises waste
- Even Coverage: Designed to provide uniform watering across your entire lawn. Something that isn’t always achieved with other sprinklers.
- Customisable: Zones can be programmed based on different areas’ watering needs. You can also change watering schedule based on the weather e.g. rain delays.
- Discrete Appearance: Retract when not in use, maintaining your lawn’s aesthetic.
- Convenience: Automated timers mean you never forget to water (or turn it off). Plus, if you go away for extended periods of time, you don’t have to rely on the neighbour to water your lawn!
Despite these advantages, an automatic pop up irrigation system does require pre-planning and is a significant upfront investment compared to other options.
Wobble Tee Sprinkler
The Wobble-Tee Sprinkler works by throwing water in every direction at different distances while rotating in a circular motion. It conveniently plugs into your hose and can cover areas of up to 15m diameter. For this reason, it is a popular choice when pop up irrigation isn’t an option.
These sprinklers spray water similar to the way light rain may fall on your lawn. They also do have the option to connect other sprinklers from the same tap, which is a handy feature when watering over a larger area.
Like many hose-attached sprinkler options, it can be tricky to ensure that your whole lawn area is receiving an even and equal amount of water. This is especially true if you have to manually move it round your yard. Keep this in mind if you plan to use a wobble tee to water your lawn.
Oscillating Sprinkler
Oscillating sprinklers move in a back and forwards motion across your lawn. They generally can cover a medium sized area and are a better option for square or rectangle shaped gardens since they water in lines. Unfortunately, sometimes these aren’t adjustable, which may make it more difficult to avoid garden features, such as trees and kids play areas.
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Stationary Sprinkler
Stationary sprinklers are one of the most common types of sprinklers on the market. These sprinklers will usually have a hole at the top where the water is dispersed from and only spread water out to one location. This allows for the targeted area to be watered quickly. Some stationary sprinklers will have adjustable settings to allow you to control where water is released from and what direction they will spray at.
These sprinklers are only really a good option for small garden and lawn areas, especially if they’re an odd shape and an oscillating sprinkler won’t work. It’s not recommended for larger areas as you will be required to manually move the sprinkler – this is often inaccurate and leaves unwatered areas of your lawn.
Soaker Hoses
Soaker hoses have small holes on one side of the hose allowing for water to be distributed across the length of the hose. As these sprinklers do no throw water across an area, less evaporation and water loss will occur compared to other sprinkler types. These sprinklers work best when laid out straight and flat so that water can be dispersed evenly across the selected area. They’re popular and a better recommendation for garden beds rather than lawn areas.
We would only recommend to use soaker hoses in tricky areas where ‘throwing’ water isn’t an option for example skinny areas next to the house. It’s important to ensure enough and even coverage with this watering method. It can be very obvious when things go wrong!
As you can see, there are a lot of options when it comes to watering your lawn but we would always recommend to plan an automatic pop up irrigation system when you can. Most lawn issues we come across in South Australia are due to watering, so it’s important you have the ability to get it right from the start.
