Watering Manually

[ZPalms]

probably a dumb question, I want to manually water all my palms today with the hose, I don't have irrigation drip lines but I do want some eventually but I just want to move the hose around every once in a while today but how long do I keep it running on a single palm for it to actually make a difference and isn't wasting water but isn't doing too little?

It hasn't been raining much here and the palms are growing decently but I want them to move a little quicker.

[SeanK]

I guess I'd set it to run 1/4 to 1/2 inch, kinda slow. Set it to soak in but not run off. In sand more flow for about 5 minutes. On my red clay, it has to be very slow for about 10 to 15 minutes.

[Harry’s Palms]

I water all my palms manually( except the ones on the slope) . I run a medium to full shower position and soak the drip circle . Then I keep the water on until it puddles up real well and move on to the next group of palms , repeat . When I get to the last one I go back and do it all again! It takes me quite a while to water them but I enjoy being in the garden . I just did some ground maintenance this morning and watered  a dry section in the back . I started at about 8 or so and finished around noon . Drip system would be very helpful but I just like the time under the trees. Harry

[Fusca]

7 hours ago, ZPalms said:

probably a dumb question, I want to manually water all my palms today with the hose, I don't have irrigation drip lines but I do want some eventually but I just want to move the hose around every once in a while today but how long do I keep it running on a single palm for it to actually make a difference and isn't wasting water but isn't doing too little?

It hasn't been raining much here and the palms are growing decently but I want them to move a little quicker.

What I used to do when I had clay soil was to take a 5-gal bucket and drill a small hole at the bottom and set it near the base of the palm.  Then I'd fill it up and let it drip.  It's useful with sandy soil too if it's really fine sand.

[ZPalms]

3 hours ago, Harry’s Palms said:

I water all my palms manually( except the ones on the slope) . I run a medium to full shower position and soak the drip circle . Then I keep the water on until it puddles up real well and move on to the next group of palms , repeat . When I get to the last one I go back and do it all again! It takes me quite a while to water them but I enjoy being in the garden . I just did some ground maintenance this morning and watered  a dry section in the back . I started at about 8 or so and finished around noon . Drip system would be very helpful but I just like the time under the trees. Harry

I don't mind going out and manuelly watering but I hate having to make sure that the water is actually going deep, I more so set and forget and I have too much ground to cover and it gets exhausting! I wouldnt mind it so much if my palms were taller and I could work on the understory then it probably would be as bad. 🤠

[peachy]

Where I have a number of palms and other plants in one area,  I run the sprinkler for an hour, flood the place a bit and it all just soaks in. What I call hand  watering is holding a hose to make sure each plant gets its fair share, which used to take me many hours per day (a bit like watering all my potted stuff now). Getting the smaller ones wet on top doesn't seem to bother them at all in my climate. I have looked at sprinkler system but they are so complicated to set up and seem to give a bit of trouble too which would drive me batty.

Peachy

[happypalms]

As discussed before there are no dumb questions. Asking a question is just a form of learning. Pretty well much you can water most palms for as long as you have time to do so. Next time it rains look at the difference in comparison to hand watering especially after a heavy rainstorm. But most irrigation shifts are 20 to 30 minutes daily in dry conditions. It comes down to the cost of running your watering system. I have bore for water so electricity for pumping the water to a holding tank and then electricity for the prime pump to run the hose and electricity is not cheap. 

[ZPalms]

1 hour ago, Fusca said:

What I used to do when I had clay soil was to take a 5-gal bucket and drill a small hole at the bottom and set it near the base of the palm.  Then I'd fill it up and let it drip.  It's useful with sandy soil too if it's really fine sand.

I love this idea, I could definitely get a couple buckets and then fill them all where they need to be and let them all drip! definitely gonna keep this noted!

 

36 minutes ago, peachy said:

Where I have a number of palms and other plants in one area,  I run the sprinkler for an hour, flood the place a bit and it all just soaks in. What I call hand  watering is holding a hose to make sure each plant gets its fair share, which used to take me many hours per day (a bit like watering all my potted stuff now). Getting the smaller ones wet on top doesn't seem to bother them at all in my climate. I have looked at sprinkler system but they are so complicated to set up and seem to give a bit of trouble too which would drive me batty.

Peachy

I did think of running a sprinkler but I've been scared of rot or anything like that, Ive seen so many post on here about peoples sprinkler systems rotting there palms away so I've been scared too. Ive opened up to the idea of it but as a once in a while type thing because im scared 😂 irrigation set ups are so overwhelming and complicated looking, Id do one myself if it was simple and didn't involve so many tubes and fixings!

 

5 minutes ago, happypalms said:

As discussed before there are no dumb questions. Asking a question is just a form of learning. Pretty well much you can water most palms for as long as you have time to do so. Next time it rains look at the difference in comparison to hand watering especially after a heavy rainstorm. But most irrigation shifts are 20 to 30 minutes daily in dry conditions. It comes down to the cost of running your watering system. I have bore for water so electricity for pumping the water to a holding tank and then electricity for the prime pump to run the hose and electricity is not cheap. 

I have well water, I'm just making sure however I can water to make it less of a hassle, I only got to half of my palms today because I was letting the hose water into the ground for 15 mins at a time on each palm but of course I get distracted. 

[SeanK]

3 hours ago, Fusca said:

What I used to do when I had clay soil was to take a 5-gal bucket and drill a small hole at the bottom and set it near the base of the palm.  Then I'd fill it up and let it drip.  It's useful with sandy soil too if it's really fine sand.

I like this. I'll have to try it. 1/4 inch hole? One or two?

[Billy]

Not a dumb question. I also water manually. I find it therapeutic and spend the majority of my time outdoors anyway. I try to make moats around my plantings which makes manual watering easy. How much water I give each palm depends on the time of year and what the weather’s been doing. I’ve also been known to forget and leave a hose on slow drip overnight…..

[James B]

I do the bulk of my watering manually. Irrigation is great for hitting multiple palms all at once and saves you work. But it doesn’t compare to running a hose full blast at the base of a Roystonea when it comes to volume of water.

[Fusca]

11 hours ago, SeanK said:

I like this. I'll have to try it. 1/4 inch hole? One or two?

I think I went with a single 1/8" hole with pretty heavy clay which I'm sure you've got.  You can always make a bigger hole if it drips too slow.

[Northernpalms]

Does anyone have a drip system?  I set one up last year and seems like the way to go.  Was cheap and easy to set up.  Did it all myself