ᐅ Which company do you recommend for garden irrigation systems?

Hello everyone,

We are planning to install a garden irrigation system. Our preferred choice so far is the Gardena solution. However, landscaping professionals have recommended more professional systems such as Rain Bird or Hunter.

We have heard varying feedback about the Gardena system, ranging from good to poor. The smart home solution, including the app, seems to perform best with Gardena, as far as I know. The apps from Rain Bird and Hunter have been rated rather poorly (summary: good hardware but weak software).

Now I’m wondering if it’s possible to mix these systems. For example, using Gardena’s smart home controller but irrigation tubes and valves from Rain Bird or similar.

Have you had any experience with this or can you offer any advice?

Hello, we have Rainbird pipes and sprinklers installed and use Gardena controllers. However, we do not have a smart home system.
In the front yard, we have 4 sprinklers connected, and in the main garden, 5 sprinklers, each running on 2 separate zones with 2 and 3 sprinklers respectively. Due to water pressure limitations, we can only run one zone at a time. However, the Gardena controllers can be programmed quite well so that the programs run sequentially.
I’m not sure about compatibility with devices like moisture sensors and similar, as we are only using a very basic on/off system.

It depends on how large and complex you want your system to be and how many irrigation zones you plan to set up.
For example, I have a total of eight irrigation zones (two with pop-up sprinklers, two drip lines for hedges, one drip irrigation for the flower pots on the terrace, and the rest spray stakes for garden beds).
Basically, you can mix the components. I use Hunter pop-up sprinklers, which are excellent, even though they seem to be cheaply made.
The spray stakes and drip lines are from Netafim, and the controllers are from Hunter, but without smart home integration.

I bought the pipes from the plumbing department because they were half the price compared to those in the garden section.

How many zones do you want to set up, and do they have significantly different water requirements?

Gardena is "toy-like," overpriced, and not durable when it comes to automated irrigation. Use Hunter or Rainbird instead. Use pipes made of HDPE (potable water pipes). Rotators are best. They are also cheaper than Gardena’s flexible hoses. There are already very detailed threads here about how to set up an irrigation system. You can control it however you want. The software and actuators don’t care which brand is on the valve. I don’t know which tests you’ve read, but Hydrawise irrigation controllers are perfect for use in private installations.

Hello everyone,

sorry for the late response and many thanks for all the tips. After much consideration, we will install a Hunter irrigation system next year. For this year, we are thinking about buying the Gardena microchip system (drip hose with Gardena connector) as a temporary solution. Can I integrate this system into the Hunter system?

A valve is a valve. It doesn’t matter whether a drip line, sprinkler, or something else is connected behind it, or which manufacturer it is from. It will be a separate zone anyway.