With a few simple tools, homeowners can regulate landscape irrigation - with positive impacts for their water-use (and water bill) as well as their plantings, which can suffer as much from too much water as from too little.

You'll need:

• An Optimal Irrigation Scheduler chart, or the Optimal Irrigation Scheduler brochure can be viewed on-line and printed. Now also available is the Simple Irrigation Scheduler brochure.

• 8 to 10 straight sided containers (empty cups or cans)

• a ruler

• a phone, or access to the LVMWD web site

1. Locate the time controller on your irrigation system (likely somewhere on the inside wall of your garage) and determine which areas of the landscape are served by each "station" setting. (A station is simply a single valve and the multiple sprinkler heads it controls. ) If you don't already know which areas are part of each station, turn on the stations one by one, and see what areas are being sprinkled. Record this on your Optimal Irrigation Scheduler chart.

2. Set your cans or cups at equally spaced distances across the landscape area covered by a given station on the controller. Turn the station on for 15 minutes, then go back and measure the depth (in inches) of water in each container. Compute an average depth for all the containers.

3. Using Table A to locate the corresponding numbers to your findings. Record the test depth and associated water time on the chart.

Repeat this 3-step process for each station, and set the time controller accordingly. The times on the chart are based on 2 cycles per irrigation day, which helps to avoid runoff - particularly on hilly terrain. If you use a single cycle per irrigation day or if your timer cannot provide multiple cycles, you'll need to double the times in Table A.

(If you do not want to conduct the container test, Table A also shows typical irrigation depths for specific types of sprinkler heads.)

Now, your minutes are set and your cycles are set. All you need to do is adjust the number of days you'll water, which is shown by month on Table B. Following this table, which is based on average weather patterns, you'll be changing the number of days only 4 times over the course of a year.

You're now ready for the final steps, with some assistance from high technology.

4. For the weather station site closest to your property, identify the Irrigation Adjustment Percentage. This number shows how much more or less irrigation your plants will require over the coming week to offset the weather impacts of the previous week.

5. Back at your controller, turn the dial to Budgeting. Change the value to match the Irrigation Adjustment Percentage

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With ongoing adjustments, you'll be providing your plantings water according to their ongoing, changing needs. If you have any questions, call the LVMWD Optimal Irrigation hotline at (818)251-2160.

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