[zeroibis]

The first big question you want to ask yourself about drip zones is if you need to water everything on that zone on the same schedule. Think about the plants you want to have on a given zone and ensure they have similar watering requirements.

I have multiple zones based on what I am watering. I got one zone for a group of gardenia and azalea on the top of a hill, another for all the arborvitae and despite my hedge of sky pencil holly and hedge of camellia being one in front of the other they are on separate zones becuase they have different watering requirements. Lastly my Hydrangea are on a separate zone becuase those need to be watered more often than anything.

You can use inline valves to control some things, for example I have a redbud, japanese maple and a magnolia on the same zone as the camellia but I have a manual valve on them because they do not need to be watered as much as the camellia in the summer and I just have the drip on them for when we are really lacking rainfall.

Most drip systems are designed with a PSI around 25 and as a result they will run great even on long runs, over pressure tends to be a larger issue than under pressure. Just be sure to actually go and check how much water your plants are getting with a drip system you may have calculated what you think it needs but you need to go and check the soil conditions to get everything dialed in. Just like a lawn sprinkling system you need to actually check and adjust based on the conditions of the plants. After a season or so you will know what the timings should be.

 

[zeroibis]

To try not to overcomplicate things, you can break up drip zones based on how often you water, and choose the number and type of emitters per plant (or length of emitter tubing around the plants) to control how much water.

Correct, thank you for making this clear. Mine makes it seem you can not mix the types of plants but it is just that I have a lot of areas with groups of plants that are all the same that have very different requirements for when they need to be watered.