Irrigation: More important than you think!

Colorado Springs is a beautiful city bordered by Pikes Peak and our majestic Rocky Mountains. Doctor FX feels blessed with our scenic vistas, attractive climate and the wide variety of plants and trees that flourish in our challenging mountain ecosystem. Whether Doctor FX is out on the town or just enjoying the comforts of my backyard, I find the surrounding nature is a source of beauty and inspiration.

We live in a high desert environment. Whether the plants, lawn, trees, gardens and shrubs in your yard are natural or planted by you, they need water on a regular basis to survive, grow and reach their full potential and beauty. Even in a climate like Colorado Springs with sometimes plentiful rainfall and snow, Doctor FX reminds you that water is “life”!

Keeping your landscapes suitably watered will keep the surrounding greenery with you a long time, keep them healthy so they can naturally fight off pests and bring out the best that nature has to offer. Quality irrigation systems are the way savvy people take care of their yards and their investment in their homes and businesses. The big items to remember in designing irrigation systems for your property is:

• Ensure that everything is watered when it needs to be watered.
• Likewise ensuring that nothing is watered when it doesn’t need to be (ie: it just rained).
• Your lawn and each plant and tree gets just the right amount of water it needs.
• Water loss is minimized.
• You’re doing your part to conserve our precious and limited water resources.
• All of the above is accomplished with minimal effort on your part.

The fourth item, minimizing water loss, is especially important. You “lose” water through:

• Evaporation
• Wind
• Runoff
• Pooling
• Overspray onto non-landscaped areas
• Over watering plants and trees that don’t require it
• Continuing to water already already saturated areas

Water costs are high in Colorado Springs … our rates are up 48% over the last three years. A well designed irrigation system can keep your landscaping healthy and reduce water consumption by 50% or more. Does your current system:

• Deliver different amounts of water to different plant types?
• Minimize spray onto driveways, patios, streets and other hard surfaces?
• Skip a watering cycle if it’s recently rained?
• Deliver water quickly to flat areas to minimize evaporation?
• Deliver water more slowly to sloped areas to minimize runoff?
• Work even if available water pressure is low or variable?
• Water at the optimum time of day?
• Adapt efficiently to “no watering” days and other municipal requirements?

It does if Landscape FX installed it! The best irrigation system will never be the cheapest. Most landscapers in and around Colorado Spring install a system with generic 98¢ sprinkler heads; the heads we use have built-in check valves and cost about 12 times this. Why the extra expense?

• They can be precisely aimed and positioned to minimize overspray.
• They can deliver variable mounts of water as the target irrigation area mandates.
• They perform well regardless of available water pressure.
• They are durable and long lasting.
• Matched precipitation nozzles are used exclusively ensuring uniform coverage.

Landscape FX, in designing the perfect system for your yard, garden, plants and needs; takes into account:

• The shape and slope of your property.
• Environmental regulations and city codes.
• The optimum number of irrigation zones.
• The optimum irrigation system type to employ.
• Proper installation and blow-outs to prevent winter freezing.
• Your home and yard aesthetics.

Landscape FX’s key objective is a system that is unobtrusive and gets the job done whether you are at home or on the run. Of utmost concern is not allowing water to pool in your yard and over underground utilities; you don’t want to wake up to a swimming pool where you don’t want one. If necessary, Landscape FX can resculpture and regrade your property minimizing “ponding” and directing runoff away from your footings, basement and window wells.

Landscaping contractors and even some home owners are very familiar with the “old school” Rain Bird Maxi Paw sprinkler heads. What most people who make fun of these older heads don’t know is that they were ahead of their time in the 1990’s and were one of the most efficient sprinkler heads up until recent years.

The competition has always been fierce between RainBird, Hunter, K-Rain, Toro and many other companies. For the last few years, Landscape FX has strictly used RainBird 1804 SAM-PRS (Stop-A-Matic Pressure Reducing System) matched with Hunter MP Rotator (matched precipitation) nozzles. Landscape FX prefers using the best of both worlds and Walla Walla actually patented the MP Rotator nozzle prior to Hunter acquiring the company.

RainBird has come out with a similar product, but it is less adjustable making it more difficult to use with custom yard designs with sod areas that are full of curves and narrow areas. This combination of a sprinkler head that incorporates a built in check valve and requires half of the water pressure (55 to 65psi), paired with a high efficiency nozzle that reduces typical water usage by approximately 30% can easily conserve half or more of the water required by a typical system.

Doctor FX also reminds you how important it is to amend your soil by rototilling and fine grading it prior to the installation of sod. While there are currently no requirements for soil amendment in El Paso County or Colorado Springs, this pre-prep of your underlying soil helps the sod to retain the water your newly installed irrigation system will be precisely matching with head-to-head coverage.

Landscape FX has installed scientifically and artistically designed irrigation systems in Colorado Springs and surrounding areas for years and can design a system that is right for you. Irrigation systems are of four general types:

• Drip
• Overhead
• Underground
• Mobile

Each of these systems has pros and cons and we might employ more than one type on your property to accomplish your goals. Landscape FX uses state-of-the-art valve systems to make sure you don’t have leaks and uses efficient nozzles that direct water where it is supposed to go. Our control panels are hi-tech and programmable. We do the initial programming and instruct you how to modify it to suit changing conditions or seasons. We always provide manual override options to allow you to deal with special needs like the recent application of fertilizer. Your new Landscape FX system irrigates your lawn, plants and trees when they need it and you don’t even have to be there.

If you don’t have an irrigation system to take care of your landscape needs, or you are not happy with the one you have; Doctor FX recommends you give the irrigation specialists at Landscape FX a call and get an irrigation system that fits you, your yard and your budget. While watering is a homeowner’s duty, it doesn’t have to tie you down and eat up your weekend when you would rather be out playing golf or at the park with the kids.

Landscaping makes your home more attractive, more livable and more valuable … protect that investment! Doctor FX doesn’t want you to spend your days dragging hoses all over the yard and hand placing little sprinklers to try and reach your wife’s favorite flowering shrub when the two of you could be sailing off into the sunset in the Caribbean!

Doctor FX says “Make it a great and green summer!

Learn about state-of-the-art irrigation … watch the videos!

Want to learn more about the high- efficiency sprinkler technology Landscape FX employs? Doctor FX suggests you take a few minutes to watch these four short but informative videos!