opinions please - irrigation types

[Philthy]

erm.. WOW!!

That is a serious setup you have there, Kristen. Very impressed

Well, I got mine off fleabay. Guess I'm not using it properly.. it didn't come with any plastic sheeting at any rate.

[Kristen]

That is a serious setup you have there

I do a lot of propagation - don't want to have to buy plants if I can avoid it, prefer to spend that money on something else! There are about 400 Box plants in that photo, would have cost me the best part of a £Grand if I had bought them!

Well, I got mine off fleabay. Guess I'm not using it properly.. it didn't come with any plastic sheeting at any rate.

Mine didn't come with sheeting either, it is sold separately, so if you still have yours (and want to try it ) the micro-pore sheet is also available on eBay.

But if the capillary matting you have is thin / flimsy then I am doubtful that it will work well enough to be worthwhile. There is some figure like "Litres per hour" or "Litres per sq. meter" that the matting with suck up, I went for the matting with highest value that I could find. My bench is 4' wide, so it has a long way to "pull".

In hot weather I water onto the matting, in additional to filling up the reservoir, just in case the further reaches of the matting are not getting enough water from capillary action alone. I also have a thin plastic sheet under the matting, otherwise it drips through the joints in the staging, and dries out.

FWIW I also use capillary outside to stand my plants on. Watering them is hit & miss, its a boring job!, so I just vaguely water everything and any over-spill that misses a pot, or drains through, is then absorbed by the matting and redistributed to other pots where I was too slapdash I have similar holding areas for plants that have a sheet of plastic at the base covered with an inch or so of sand. The sand acts as a reservoir for the water and means I can water less often - and none at all if we get some rain Have to be careful that things are not too wet in winter though - I lowered the plastic sheeting edge at the lowest corner for the winter so that water that puddles at the lowest point drains away. I don't think the pots are any wetter than the plants would be planted out in my clay ... but it does not suit plants [over winter] that need to be drier, I move them to the greenhouse floor and rarely water them at all - and they get no rain during the winter either, of course.