We have a mature lemon tree at our Arizona home. We have been instructed by an arborist that we should only be watering it once a month for an hour during the winter months. Is it possible to set a Rachio 3 schedule to water only once a month? I am unable to figure out how to do this if that is possible. Thanks in advance for your help.
Is the lemon tree the only thing on this zone?
Are you against setting up a flex daily schedule? Depending on rain, my tree zones are running every 3-4 weeks in the winter months here in AZ.
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One way to do it is to have a separate schedule for one day each month for the winter months. It might do a rain skip if the schedule has that enabled. Last time I looked, I had to change the schedule on a yearly basis, as the year is part of the schedule. I have a winter and summer schedule, as I can water 1 day a week in winter months and 2 days in summer months, and have to update the start/end dates every year.
That is what I would like to do, John, but I am unable to figure out how to have it run just one time a month. I set it on a fixed schedule. Chose a Sunday to begin the cycle. The problem is that when I set the cycle this way, it wants to run every Sunday. How do I set it to run once a month for an hour?
You can set a date for when a schedule starts and ends. The default for Select Days is Start Date of Today, and an End Date of Never. If you change the start and end date to a specific date, it will only run on that date (assuming the day of the week matches). Once a season, I go into all those individual schedules and set it to the same date in the next year.
Excellent advice! Thank you, John!
I also need the ability to set a zone to water once a month. I removed my front lawn and replaced it with a garden of all native California plants in Feb 2022. I watered weekly for the first summer but now the plants are strong enough that once a month watering for this summer should be all they need.
I can see that there is a way to do it with the “start date / end date” method, but, really? That is rather clumsy. I would like to just be able to say “water on the 1st day of each month” and be done with it.
Hi. I agree. I had to do the same for our fruit trees in AZ. I set up the schedule with the Interval of the day of the week I want it. I chose the watering duration and time needed and then had to put in a start date of Jan to Dec but I could only do it for 2023. Ugh! I set a calendar reminder for next Jan to change it for 2024. Really frustrating. I set the cycle and soak to ‘none’ also.
I’m having a difficult time setting up for once a month watering following suggestions above. Does anyone have specific instructions they could provide? Many thanks. Hopefully, Rachio can update their software to allow for once monthly watering for those in arid environments.