Got Tall Plants? Get a Tall Sprinkler
The Problem
At our Illinois house, the soils of the Great Corn Desert were so darned fertile people claimed that a railroad spike stuck in the ground would grow into an ironwood tree. Well, not that fertile, but just about everything we did plant got big - fast. As those plants grew, we had to keep raising the sprinkler so the closest plants didn't block the water from reaching the rest. For a while, we jury-rigged an impact sprinkler whose base rested on the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket, held in place by some rocks.
The Solution
"There must be a better way," we thought, and we were right: it's the Orbit SunMate High-Rise Sprinkler. It's a regular three-arm spinner sprinkler on a telescoping pole that extends to three feet tall. That's high enough to reach over most nearby plants and water the whole garden.
| The brass spinner has three bent arms about 3" long. Each arm ends in with a pattern of five little holes at the end. There's another hole at the dogleg in the arm, set a bit off-center. The telescoping copper tube mounts on a sturdy plastic double stake with a footpad for stomping the stakes into hard soil. The hose connector has a flow-through design, with a female connector on one side and a male connector, with a cap, on the other. That way you can hook up more than one sprinkler in series. Orbit cites a 25-foot radius if your water pressure is high enough. This seems about right, since we need to lower the pressure to cover the 20-foot square of our current garden plot. The three heads aim up at a slight angle for increased coverage, with nice even coverage throughout the pattern. Water from the holes in the arms shoots almost straight up, watering closer to the center. |
Ours has lasted through several summers, first in Illinois and now in Houston, so it's durable and dependable. As soon as plants in our garden plot grow tall enough to block a sprinkler on the ground, out comes our Orbit.
Summary
PLUS: tall enough to reach over the heads of the plants, even watering pattern
MINUS: none
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Once your garden plants are tall enough to block the sprinkler's spray, bring out the High-Rise Sprinkler.
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