JoAnne Skelly: Outside, finally!

Today was a very productive day working in the yard. The cold weather kept me in far too long recently. I wanted to be outside. The temperature was perfect with a bright blue sky and little wind.

One of my first chores was hooking the hoses and sprinklers up again. I had unhooked everything to prevent freezing, or so I thought. The first hose leaked like a sieve from the faucet and hose connection. So, I put that task on hold until my husband could figure it out.

Then, I turned on the automatic irrigation system to give the lawns and trees a good soak. Three out of the five stations had problems. One had a head that was completely busted off, shooting water like the Bellagio fountain. Another station has an underground leak and a head that won’t shut off. Finally, the last station had two heads that were stuck.

Being early in the season, this is fairly normal for a system that is 35 years old in some areas. However, it also required a trip to two box stores for sprinkler heads, hose parts, washers and so on. I dug up the heads and my husband installed and adjusted the spray distance and width. My neighbor Roni loaned me her short-handled drain spade which simplified the job. I can’t believe that in 35 years of digging up irrigation heads and lines I have never had one of these great tools. In the end, turning the irrigation system on was an all-day task. But happily the yard is being watered as I write this.

Roni and I were talking about the difference in our yards. I told her that my advice to anyone putting in a new landscape would be to do as they had done. They have a manageable lawn for their dog. That’s the only high-flow overhead irrigation they have. This reduces weeds and sprinkler problems. All the rest of their beautiful yard is on drip systems. They have larger mainlines and drip tubes without emitters, which keeps things from clogging. At our house, 90 percent of the irrigation is high-flow overhead sprays, because that was what was here when we bought the house. Our big trees had 20 years of lawn irrigation before we got here. Taking out thousands of square feet of lawn without damaging tree roots would have been quite challenging. Trying to cover all the roots with drip irrigation after removing the lawn would have also been tough.

I love our landscape, even with all the work required.

JoAnne Skelly is associate professor & extension educator emerita at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Reach her at skellyj@unr.edu.