Add small/medium/large shrubs to Zone setup?

When setting up zones, the choice of shrubs is limited to one choice, which sets a root depth of 18 inches. This would be fine for a medium-to-large, established shrub. With smaller shrubs, this might lead to under-watering, especially with flex-scheduling.
I found this to be the case when I started with flex scheduling and found that one zone had no scheduled waterings. When I looked into it, I found that adjusting the root depth for my Nandinas to 8-9 inches gave what I thought was a more appropriate watering schedule. As a somewhat experienced user (as most early adopters will tend to be), I was able to adjust this appropriately.
As majority users come on the scene, I can see more potential need to make this clearer. Most people will probably feel that a shrub is a shrub is a shrub.
Perhaps a setting for small/medium/large shrubs with varying root depth?

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@bwjordan

More crop types is definitely in our future, thanks for the heads-up on your particular scenarios :wink:

:cheers:

What would be really cool (and probably a bit over the top if i’m honest, but…hey…dream big!) would be to be have a shrub database that has information about each shrub in terms of mature size, growth patterns, etc…so one can saw, Ok in this bed i’ve planted these 3 different shrubs, these are the ages, and they are this approximate size, and based upon that data, it can determine the best watering based on the composition of the shrub bed.

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Now you are talking!

:cheers:

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+1

I was just coming in here to request something similar. I’m spending a small fortune on plants as we re-landscape our yard. Since I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’m spending a ridiculous amount of time researching water requirements. If the Iro could set a schedule based on what we have in each zone, that adjusts as our plants mature, it would save me a TON of time and be super valuable.

if you are placing a bunch of new plants, just setup a schedule to water them everyday for the rest of the summer, when they come out of dormancy next year, their root stock should be established well enough to extract lesser bits of moisture.

are you using drip irrigation?

Thanks for the suggestion. That’s what I was doing until I read that over-watering would likely kill the Rhododendrons. I’ve since backed off to every 3 days in that zone and have been checking moisture levels daily… Maybe every other day would be better than what I’m doing now. (Yes, I’m using drip.)

To the point of this thread, flex schedules wanted to water for extended duration every couple weeks, which might be great for mature plants but is not appropriate for fresh plantings. I’d be jumping for joy if I could just plug in what I have and let the system evolve as the plants develop.

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