Not only that, but if lightweight, free
draining soil is used as it so often is
these days, and you combine that with an
efficient drainage system, available water
is reduced significantly.
Long story short – a landscape that’s
based on a podium cannot be considered
as equal to an in-ground garden – the
water requirements are completely
different.
1. How do you maintain consistency
and prevent water wastage? Unless
you have someone with an intimate
knowledge of the garden, the plant’s
needs and the soil type doing the
watering every single time, the
watering process becomes something
of a gamble. can be completed by an existing
maintenance crew, but adding this
task to an existing list of ‘things
to do’ only serves to relegate
the irrigation side of things to an
afterthought; leading to overwatering,
underwatering, or – at best – erratic
watering.
2. Hand watering costs money too.
Depending on soil depth, watering
will generally be required between
3-7 times a week. For a maintenance
crew to come and water even twice
a week would be a considerable
investment, which – if continued
for any length of time – would pale
in comparison to the cost of an
irrigation system. Not so long ago, on a project in the middle
of London, we completed detail design of
an irrigation system. The irrigation system
was then value engineered out and the
landscape was installed. Within a year all
the trees and most of the plants had died.
Guess what they installed next?
(As an aside, podium or not, a garden
should be watered according to the soil’s
capacity to hold water, not just the plant’s
water requirements.)
What About Hand Watering?
More often than not, when irrigation
systems are value engineered out of a
project, hand watering is proffered as the
alternative.
Which is certainly an option. But here are
some things to consider on that front:
3.
It shouldn’t be an afterthought.
When you consider how vital water
is to the entire landscape, it makes
sense that it should not be an
afterthought. Some cost-cutters
suggest that the watering process
My takeaway here is simple: if a client
is looking to cut costs – wherever they
are in the project – it’s vital to run the
numbers and ensure that the action they
are proposing will not have profound,
negative or costly implications – after all,
we work in this business to create, not
complicate.
www.irrigation-engineers.co.uk
Landscape & Urban Design
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