20 Hours of Watering! A Flex Daily Question

Oops! The square footage of the summer grass is 660 (not 66). Sorry.

As far as the drip zones are concerned, as I mentioned some of the plants are in-ground others are in above-ground tubs. That is not an ideal mix, but I have to work with the existing layout of the zones. Because the tubs are above ground & black plastic, the soil temperature is comparatively higher & the evaporation rate faster than in-ground plants covered with bark mulch.

I did re-define the crop selection in the 5 zones of drought-resistant native grasses to Xeriscape which makes more sense. That decreased the total run time from 20 hours to 17 hours.

With the drip emitters & micro sprinklers, the recommended run time of 2 1/4 hours in the Flex Daily Schedule seems way excessive. During this time of year, a run time of 13-16 minutes during odd days seems to be ideal. If I boost the run time to 2 1/4 hours, the soil in the tubs will be saturated quickly & the excess water will simply drain through the gravel base out of the tubs. With a run time of 2 1/4 hours, the in-ground plants in the amended clay soil will not adequately drain & create its own set of problems.

Linn: Your suggestion of having a separate schedule for the drip zones (maybe Fixed?) & running the native grass & planted grass zones on a Flex schedule seems sensible to a new user like myself.

In the interim, here is what I am thinking. Until the hot days of summer are over, I might simply run all the zones on a Fixed schedule. When temperatures cool, I might do some experimentation with the Flex Daily schedule since cooler weather is more forgiving. Does this seems reasonable?