The Micro Sprinkler is a watering system particularly adapted to large flower beds and rock gardens.
The Micro Aspersion produces a very fine rain that waters at low pressure (it does not damage the flowers, even fragile ones) and over different distances quite wide (1 to 3 meters radius depending on the brand).
This one is very easy to install since all the pipes are on the surface, with connectors to be plugged or screwed: many parts are common with a Drip system (see sheet: balconies and terraces). However, never mix micro-sprinklers with drippers on the same pipe.
So, a programmer on the faucet, a piece of garden hose with fittings, a filter + pressure reducer, PE hose with a diameter of 13x16, ground spikes to hold the hose in place, a small shut-off valve at the end of the hose that will allow for easy draining in the winter (since the hose is on the surface, it is not protected from the cold)
Once the main 13x16 pipe is in place, simply create branches on small pipe (4mm or 4.6mm) to a support.
At the top of this support, the micro-sprinkler is screwed or plugged in.
Note that the small tube branches should be relatively short (generally not more than 1 meter) and that between the support and the micro-sprinkler, it is often possible to place an extension (to raise the micro-sprinkler according to the vegetation) and a small regulating tap (to adjust the distance of the jet).
A micro-sprinkler is placed every 2 or 3 meters or so (depending on the technical characteristics): the jets must cross each other, as one sprinkler must always try to water its neighbor.
Even if they water at a pressure of a few bars in fine rain, the micro-sprinklers can have a large flow (up to 100 liters for some). It is therefore not possible to place too many of them on a single pipe.
The main technical advantages of micro-sprinklers are, if compared to drip irrigation:
- Excellent watering coverage over a large area (for a rock garden for example). The drip only waters a strip of land about 60cm wide.
- less hoses to pass through the beds, it facilitates the maintenance/planting and reduces the risks of breakage.
- in a caricatural way, where 50 drippers are needed to water a bed, we obtain a much better water distribution with only 5 sprinklers.
- the sprinklers, in height, do not get blocked, contrary to drippers which can end up being buried in the very dense massifs.
- it is easy to move a sprinkler since it is always in branch of the main pipe on a support planted in the ground. As a remark, I would indicate that the solution of putting the sprinklers directly in the 13x16 pipe is not qualitative in terms of watering and can, in some cases, be defective very quickly (from the second year).
- finally, the micro-sprinkler system is aesthetic when it works (editor's note: you will tell me that it must work around 2:00 am, and that the visual aspect is not essential at this hour ....)
All this being very easy to install, I wish you a "good installation".
