Irrigation is
one of three powerful landscape management tools.
(The others are fertilization and cutting, e.g.,
pruning or mowing)
Plants have inherited cycles of leafing, flowering,
and seed dispersal, compatible with annual cycles
of rainfall in their natural habitat. Irrigation,
the artificial watering of the soil, drastically
changes where and how plants grow. The
most widespread landscape plant in North America,
Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), is a Eurasian
plant which naturalized in urban lawns due to
irrigation. For all practical purposes it wouldn't
be here without irrigation. When people talk about
having a "lawn as green as the Joneses"
they are quoting an expression that originated
in the Kentucky bluegrass belt, and this arose
from sprinkler irrigation.
Ecologically, irrigation interacts with other
major landscape management tools. Close cutting
of turfgrass, which weakens the plant and prevents
adequate root development, leads to minimal available
soil moisture reserve. Therefore, close-cut turf
wilts and dries out more readily, and more frequent
irrigation is required. In using irrigation to
maintain close-mown, luxuriant stands of turfgrass
throughout the growing season, turfgrass areas
demand more frequent irrigation than wooded areas.
This is the opposite of the natural occurrence
of grasslands in drier areas, and woodlands in
wetter areas.
Consult us for more information
on design and installation today.
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