Water-Efficient Irrigation Systems

You can reduce the amount of water you use in your garden by up to 75% by choosing a system that reduces evaporation. The system you choose will be determined by the type of garden you have. Check with your local water authority to find out what irrigation system you can use. Click here for a list of Australian Water Links.

Choose a system to suit your garden.

Use irrigation components that apply water as close as possible to the roots of the plant and with the largest droplet size practicable.

If you have narrow garden beds, or widely-spaced plants in the garden or in pots then dripper irrigation systems will efficiently supply water to these garden types. Drippers include both drip emitters that deliver water to the garden as single drops, as well as shrubblers, which release gentle streams of water up to a 1m radius. Both of these methods reduce evaporation because the water doesn’t just mist into the air. Once the water enters the soil it soaks in both horizontally and vertically.

Pots can easily be watered with drip emitters. These will deliver a fixed rate of 2, 4 or 8 litres per hour.

Shrubblers are fully adjustable to deliver 0-50 litres per hour. They can be used in large pots and are the best choice for using in garden beds because each shrubbler can be adjusted to deliver exactly the right amount of water to each plant. Shrubblers can be purchased on stakes that attach to the feeder pipe with 4mm tubing. The shrubblers can then be arranged near each plant while the feeder tube can simply run down the middle of the system, under some mulch.

You may need an in-line filter to stop your system from clogging, and on a slope, pressure-compensating drippers will be needed.

What if my garden beds are very wide? Or long?

Very long or wide garden beds with large numbers of plants in them may be expensive to maintain with drippers. A more cost-effective method would be to use a porous hose, buried under mulch, which drips water from tiny holes along the length of the hose, to deliver an even amount of water to the whole garden bed.

What about my lawn?

Being composed of some above-ground components, dripper systems are not suitable for lawns. Lawns use huge quantities of water. The most water-efficient gardens have little or no lawn areas. To provide a soft place for recreation you could include some areas planted with low water-use grasses. Cool season grasses may brown off, but should green up again with autumn rain. The most efficient way of delivering water to lawn areas is to use pop-up heads that throw water, rather than spraying it. All of these systems can be operated automatically from a timer or computerised control box. If you include a rain sensor in the system, it won’t automatically water when it’s raining or has recently rained.

For more information refer to our other helpful information sheets on Rainwater, Water Conservation In The Garden, Lawns, and Greywater.

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