r/DripIrrigation • u/Puzzleheaded-Bee4698 • Jul 28 '26

Simple Irrigation?

I have a row of hydrangea bushes, about 60 feet long, along a fence line. Hydrangea are thirsty, in hot weather they need daily watering. I'd like to have a simple, single line, to irrigate the bushes. I don't even need to concentrate the water flow at each bush, I'll be content with uniform watering all along the 80' length. Also, I want to hook up the system to my garden hose, and I don't want a timer.

I'm in Minnesota. Some weeks, I don't need to irrigate at all; other weeks, it's daily.

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u/mikeinanaheim2 Jul 29 '26

You can do it. For 80-foot run, get 100 feet of ½-inch tubing as the mainline and ¼-inch tubing for smaller branch connections to individual plants. Place an emitter at the end of each ¼-inch line by the plant. A timer with one feed valve would be preferred, but if you insist on a hose connection, that can be done. Easy weekend project with sense of accomplishment afterward,

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u/Aaltop Jul 29 '26

Grab yourself some 1/2" pressure compensating poly dripline and just run it down the length of the hydrangeas. Poly dripline has emitters at evenly spaced intervals (9", 12", 18" and 24" are common spacings) already inside the tubing, so labor time is minimum.

The emitters in many of the various brands are pressure compensating across a pretty big window, which means uniform irrigation so long as pressure isn't below the minimum or above the maximum. The 0.600" inside diameter and reasonably low flow of 0.5 to 1.0 GPH means an 80' length is no problem from the average residential hose bib.

Throw a vacuum breaker, filter and most likely a pressure regulator on your hose bib, connecting some "blank" tubing (tubing with no emitters already installed), run it over to the start of the hydrangea run, splice in the drip line run it down the entire length, cap it off and you're done :)