I have had my unit active for about a week. I have gone through each zone to detail crop, soil, ECT. I currently have the schedule on flex monthly but wonder if flex daily would be better. Main question I have is that all of my front yard turf zones are a mix of st Augustine and decades old live oak trees. I read if you have mixed crop do not use flex daily. Is this correct? If so would it benefit me to put turf only on flex daily and shrub beds on a separate flex daily. I want to maximize my new controller
@smenard44 I am a big fan of flex daily, but I am a little concerned about the turf zones you mentioned. Just to be clear- the trees and St. Augustine grass are watered by the same zone?
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I don’t know if it really matters which schedule you pick because either way, the issue (if I’m understanding it correctly) is that you have the same nozzle that waters both grass and trees, which have much different watering needs. I would personally choose Flex daily beacuse I personally use that. As @mckynzee was inquiring about, do you have the same nozzles that water both grass and trees? And if so, what have you been doing before rachio as far as watering?
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Yes. I have 5 zones in front that are all rotor heads. Theay all have st Augustine and all have at least 1 or 2 large oaks
@smenard44 I’m not entirely sure how to handle this… My concern is that St. Augustine grass has a root zone depth around 6 inches and trees have a root zone depth around 25 inches 
Whenever you sufficiently water the roots of your trees, you are going to be overwatering your grass like crazy. But if you water to cater to your grass, you are going to be under watering your tree. Like @Modawg2k said, what have you been doing to water up until now? We obviously can make it work, and I still have hope for flex, I just want to know what has been working!
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Thanks for the response. Same rotors for turf and trees. We have lived just a few years. Previous owner had dumb controller set for 15 minutes 4 or 5 days a week. I have watered 3 times a week for 20 to 25 minutes per zone during warm weather. My thought right now is 1 flex daily for all beds. 1 flex daily for turf that is turf only. And a third flex daily for mix of turf and grass. Does that sound reasonable?
So here is what I have decided to do for the time being. The 6 zones that are a combo of Oaks and turf have been watered on a 2 to 3 day a week schedule, depending on season. I have decided to stick with that for now and set them on a fixed day to be watered on Monday and Friday… The 7 zones that are turf or beds I have put on a flex daily to be watered on any days other than Monday or Friday… Does this sound reasonable or a start?
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@smenard44 This absolutely sounds reasonable. Everything else in you system should do great on flex if properly set up!
For the oaks/turf zone, my only other warning would be to only use rain skip and freeze skip when it comes to weather intelligence. Climate skip still uses your zone settings, so this will still be thrown off by the root zone difference. I would be really curious to see if anyone else has ideas on how to handle that zone, my best guess with flex would be to meet somewhere in the middle of the two different vegetation types. You would have to be pretty vigilant to make sure everything stays healthy if you took that road.
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@smenard44, sounds like a beautiful yard. Would love to see photos!
Flex Daily configured for warm season grass (St. Augustine) should work well for your lawn as the trees are probably use to frequent, shallow waterings given the previous owner’s watering habits. Remember that Flex Daily schedules are all about Just in time watering therefore, it’s a timing game for the selected crop. Once the water percolates through the soil and past the root zone for the grass, it’ll continue to into the root zone for the trees. Ideally, you might want to consider adding a zone for watering your trees separately – however if they are part of the lawn as I’m imaging they are, this would be very difficult to do and likely not worth the cost.
Great tip @mckynzee!
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