In-ground Container Gardening Irrigation Comparison

I found out quickly that one of the key things to keeping plants alive when it comes to in-ground planters is making sure the plants get enough water on a regular basis. Especially in a desert climate like Las Vegas. When the first summer came and temperatures reached over 100, it was easier to keep the plants alive because I could adjust the watering schedule. I know myself, and I would forget to water in the morning or the evening and end up with withered plants.

These are some observations from my experiences with using each type of container garden irrigation. Please take a look at this post if you are interested in how I ran irrigation stubs to my in-ground planter pot garden along my back wall.

Soaker Hose

This is what I started out using for my in-ground containers because I’m using ¼ inch soaker hose on the raised bed gardens I have. For the raised beds I wanted as much coverage as possible when watering so I left the hose above ground.

As seen in the picture, if the soaker hose isn’t covered by some type of mulch there is a lot of over-spray. When I was using this style of irrigation for the older in-ground pots I covered the soaker hose with shredded leaves for mulch.

Drip Line Emitter Tubing

Drip line emitters have a drip put in every 12 inches for ¼ inch tubing and every 18 inches for ½ inch tubing. They are supposed to regulate the flow of water to usually 1 gallon per hour (gph).

Truthfully, I had this line emitter tubing from I’m not sure where. What it was supposed to do and what it did were two different things. Here are the reasons I really didn’t think this type of irrigation would be good for containers.

• There ends up being a lot of tubing coiled in the pot to get a couple of emitters in it.
• My hose must have been cheap. It had slices in it instead of a punched hole. This probably made a big difference when it came to water flow.
• The tubing I had definitely needed an in-line water pressure reducer. The pressure coming out of the emitters would have torn up seedlings.

Adjustable Drip Emitters

Adjustable drip emitters allow you to change the water flow usually from 1 gallon per hour (gph) to 6 gph. This is the solution I liked the most so far, but it is a little expensive compared to the other solutions. Each emitter is about 50 – 75 cents each and it requires a T connection to branch off.

• If a container isn’t being used the emitters could be turned off, and the water usage can be close to none. I’m sure there will be a little leaking if any.
• The coverage is good. The emitters being used now cover about a 4 inch diameter area when they are opened up. The entire container surface area is almost covered using 4-5 emitters.
• The flow from the emitters is slow enough not to damage seedlings.

Fixed Drip Emitters

I’ve used these for herbs like Basil and Rosemary that were started 4-5 weeks under the grow lamp setup I built.

• Fixed drip emitters usually com in 1 gph and 2 gph flow rates.
• Multiple emitters might need to be used based on how long the watering cycle is and size of the plant.

I had some success with these last season. One thing to note is the plants only received half a day’s sun.