New to Rachio, but love what it’s supposed to do. I just installed it and I have 3 zones. I live in Orange County ca, so the yards are small. My yard is less than a quarter acre. All my zones are drip system and mostly shrubs. I have a back yard hedge of Carolina cherries, some ligustrum and an olive tree in the back, from planter consist of one agave and a variety of succulents. Side is an olive with some succulents. I got this system to make sure I am not overwatering etc. but it’s telling me that I need 12 hours on a daily flex. Is it me or is t that a lot? I had an old orbit and it was set to 10 minutes 2 a day. This seemed like a long time since my trees started getting root rot due to the over watering. My soul is typical Orange County clay loam type. Anyone out there with any advice? What am I doing wrong?.
With no actual “lawn” or “sprinkler heads”, I don’t think that Flex Daily is the way to go. I’d start with Flex Monthly, then set the zone times manually to what you think they should be.
For most shrubs and trees, they should normally be watered only 1x or 2x a week, if that. But they should be watered deeply, when they are. Once your soil is wet, watering twice a day every day will NEVER let it dry out, and you’d get root rot. Not so much from overwatering, but from keeping it wet (they’re different). Your soil is no doubt filled now. See what Rachio’s Flex Monthly comes up with. You’re now watering 20 minutes a day, or 140 minutes a week, and that actually sounds about right, maybe a little high. But for shrubs, I think that 140 minutes should be more like 1 time per week, not a little every day. Make sure you use Seasonal Adjustment to vary times with the season. I’d also wait a week for things to dry out before starting it up, because it will overfill that much more. If your plants can’t take a week without water, then maybe someone else can suggest something better.
The problem with Flex Daily is that you REALLY should not change its watering times. So Soil properties need to be accurate, as does Nozzle Inches per hour. But with Flex Monthly, YOU can set the minutes watering time, and easily adjust as necessary.
Makes sense. So what do you think I should keep it at in terms of watering time? The Carolina cherries are a hedge tree so not too sure how much I should water. Any advice is really appreciated.
These are all rather unusual conditions (for me, at least). If you’re happy with the water your plants are getting now, I’d add up how many minutes you water each zone for a week, and then back that off some, if you’re only watering every week or so. You get a lot more evaporation watering shallow twice a day, than watering deep once a week. Where you know your shrubs are flooded and rotting, wait at least 4-5 days, maybe more, before watering the first time, or you’ll just be wasting water. Just take each zone at a time, figure what you’ve been applying in minutes, make your best guess if it’s too little or too much, and go from there.
I’m sorry I can’t be specific here; we don’t know your plants, and unfortunately, neither does Rachio. Maybe take a typical zone, go through the questions for it, post the resultant Advanced values, what the watering time is, and how often it will water (from the Calendar). We can possibly help more that way.
Thank you, sir. So currently I have in zone 1 a An agave with a variety of succulent plants and 5 rosemary shrubs. This area is about 60-75 square feet in an inverted L this zone on a even day watering schedule is saying to water 1 hr fifty minutes for this zone. Zone two has a variety of succulents and a olive tree. Area is about 20-30 square feet. It’s suggesting 1 hour 36 minutes even days. Zone 3 has about 14 Carolina cherry hedge trees, 1 olive and a A few ligustrum. It’s recommending 2 hours 24 minutes. I think it’s basically 13 hours a week I take it?