How should we handle mixed zones?

I’m a newbie here, and with intelligent sprinkler controllers. My old Rainbird is waiting for an executive decision. eBay, Goodwill or discard. I’m really jazzed playing with my just installed Gen 2. When it comes to the question below, I may be overthinking this, and it might be best to just wait for watering season to begin and just “see what happens”

It seems the people who installed my sprinklers were, at best, having an off day. One of my zones has:

  1. Our flat flower bed with shrubs and ornamentals and partial shade
  2. The front curb area which is flat has warm weather grass and has no shade
    3 A very sloped strip on the left side of the house that has warm weather grass, and is shaded by my house or the neighbor’s house for much of the day.

So, what’s the compromise setting for this zone? Redoing the plumbing isn’t a great option.

Another zone is flat, has mostly warm weather grass, and no shade. The anomaly here is the fairly large shade tree. Is the answer here to have Rachio water for the grass and supplement the tree with spot watering? Or would we, ideally, put in another sprinkler head just for the tree?

Answers and patience with a newbie are greatly appreciated.
Mike

Where about are you located? Zone 5, zone 8? Ideally I would separate the turf to a zone and the shrubs to a zone and the ornamentals to their own. At the very lthe very east. Turf on a zone and the shrubs ornimentals on the same. This way you could,use a drip irrigation and adjust as needed by swapping the emitters on the shrubs for lower flow like .5-1 gph and the ornimentals on a higher flow. The turf is going to need water 1- 2 times a ( assuming zone 5-8) and your shrubs less where your ornamentals maybe more?

We’re in the Dallas, Tx area, and the USDA says we’re in zone 8A. Not terribly cold in the winter but very hot in the summer.

You’re pretty much telling me what I suspected,and what I was hoping to avoid. Even magic from the Rachio can’t split an existing zone. :wink:

Thanks for the reply!
Mike

There are other ppl on this,forum that know so,much more than I like @emil. They will.chime,in, I,would go with what they say over me any day of the week. I’m far more,pedantic than practical.

1 Like

Sorry I can’t help much with your zoning question, but we do have a recycle program for your old controller if you have the time.

https://rachio.com/blog/Rachio-Recycles!?p=3824389221836399151

Thanks and have a great day!

:cheers:

1 Like

@mavery76266, hate to agree with your concerns, but this zone should really be two or three with different nozzles to effectively water.

Sometimes, if you have a similar hydrozone nearby, you can retrofit the system without too much digging by simply combining and capping off the zones. A non-digging option is to do some rough tuning by customizing nozzles to apply the desired application rate (precipitation rate) over X minutes.

Alternatively, your options for scheduling are to lean towards one of the two extremes; either overwater the shaded areas, or underwater the sunny areas.

If it’s a newer system, I’d try getting the installers to come back and correct the design :wink:

1 Like

We’ve been here about 8 years, so I don’t think we’re getting a free do-over. :wink:

I’ll ask a local contractor about the matter, but suspect its not a project that will pay for itself unless you’re far more of a yard-obsessive than I am.

Thanks!
Mike

1 Like