What Is The Difference Between Micro Drip Line, Drip Line and PC Drip Line?

Drip-line irrigation is gaining popularity for several compelling reasons that reflect both environmental concerns and practical gardening benefits.

As consumers, we are becoming more conscious of how much water we use in our gardens due to warmer summers, hosepipe bans and increased publicity about water conservation, such as the ‘Love Water Campaign’, which is making us aware that water is a precious resource that we cannot simply take for granted. 

Adopting smarter watering practices can help our gardens flourish, resulting in colourful blooms and bumper crops while making the most of every drop of water. An easy way to do this is by using drip lines, which distribute water efficiently throughout the garden and directly to plant roots.

What Does a Drip Line Do?

The aim of using a drip line in your garden is to deliver water slowly and precisely to your plants' roots. By doing this, you are ensuring as much water as possible reaches the roots of your plants, rather than watering from above and splashing water onto the foliage, which not only wastes water but also makes plants more vulnerable to fungal disease. 

In addition, by placing the drip line close to the plants you wish to water, you aren’t simply covering a large area of ground with water, which again would be wasting water, but also making the ground more favourable for weeds to germinate and grow.

How Does a Drip Line Work? 

To deliver water as close to the roots of your plants as possible, many of the industry's leading manufacturers of irrigation systems, including Gardena, Claber and Rain Bird, have produced various types of drip lines suitable for use in both domestic gardens and large-scale commercial and agricultural properties. 

Common to all of these drip lines is that they are a specialised irrigation tube that has built into it evenly spaced emitters that allow the water in the tube to be released drop by drop to the surface of the ground, so it soaks quickly into the soil to reach the roots of your plants. 

These pre-installed emitters (sometimes simply called drippers as they ‘drip’ water) are specially designed so that as the water flows along the drip line, rather than flowing out as a fast rate too quick for the soil to absorb straight away resulting in water being lost to evaporation, the emitter forces the water through a tiny opening which drastically reduces the water pressure to that it emerges as slow drops rather than a fast stream. 

As these emitters are fitted during the manufacturing process, they are correctly and evenly spaced along the tube. This means that the water drips out and spreads laterally, so it is delivered evenly down through the soil to encourage healthy root growth. This is instead of emitters being fitted randomly, spaced either too far apart or too close together, which would result in an uneven distribution of moisture, and roots either not receiving sufficient or receiving so much water that it flushes down lower than the root zone, taking fertilisers along with it out of reach of your plants. 

What are the Different Types of Drip Irrigation Lines?

Rather than expecting one type of drip line to be suitable for all situations, manufacturers have developed a selection of types of drip line, including:

• Micro Drip Line
• Standard Drip Line
• PC Drip Line

These three types have been designed to suit different garden types or locations where your plants are growing. So let’s take a look at each type of drip line to see which is most suitable for where you want to water. 

What is a Micro Drip Line?

Micro drip line is a smaller-diameter tube that is highly flexible, making it easier to curve and position so it can deliver water to plants in small spaces, such as potted plants and containers. As this smaller drip tube is easier to position and takes up less space, it’s also ideal for densely planted areas than using the wider, standard drip line.  

This 4mm micro drip tube is flexible enough to lay a continuous piece along the rim of a planter to provide sufficient water to cover the entire soil surface, so all your plants will benefit. You can lay a micro drip tube on the surface of the soil and hold it in place with pegs or cover lightly with bark or mulch to both disguise and prevent any water evaporation as it operates.

What is a Standard Drip Line?

Suitable for most garden situations, standard drip line usually has an internal diameter of approximately 13/14mm, depending on the manufacturer, with pre-fitted drippers at set intervals, usually 30cm apart. This drip line is suitable for use on flat gardens, with individual runs typically kept to a maximum of 25 to 30 metres so that all the drippers along the line, from the first to the last, will drip water. 

If you exceed the 50 metre limit, you are likely to experience a drop in water pressure towards the end of the line, resulting in much less water being released from the drippers at the far end than those close to the tap. If you need to make a total length which exceeds 50 metres to maintain the drip rate, it's better to run a solid 13mm supply tube to the halfway point and then branch off in opposite directions.

What is the Difference Between Standard Drip Line and Pressure Compensating (PC) Drip Line?

When you need to water larger gardens or areas that are sloped, hilly, or uneven rather than flat, use a PC drip line rather than a standard drip line. Whilst both drip lines are fitted with pre-spaced emitters, those emitters used in the PC drip line are ‘Pressure Compensating’. 

Pressure-compensating emitters guarantee that at each outlet along the line, from the first to the last, whether going up a hill or down a bank, you will get an even release of water so your plants get exactly the same level of moisture, whether they are at the start of the line or at the end. This means you can reliably run single lengths of PC drip tube up to 100 metres or more, depending on your water pressure, and achieve 100% consistent water output along the entire length. 

What is the Best Drip Line?

The best drip line for your garden depends on the size and shape of your garden, whether it’s flat or sloped, and your water pressure. 

When watering plants growing in small, contained areas such as planters, the best drip line to use is the micro drip line.

For flat gardens where you won’t need to exceed a 30m length of drip line, the standard drip line is the best choice. 

When you are dealing with uneven terrain, large areas, or a combination of both, to ensure that all your plants receive the moisture they need, the best drip line to use is PC drip line, which guarantees a consistent flow of water from the first to the last dripper.

Need more help with Drip Irrigation?

We hope that you now feel confident to select the correct drip line for your garden. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us by email at hello@easygardenirrigation.co.uk, and we will be happy to help. 

Or, you can simply let us know how you get on with using a drip line to water your plants and any advice you’d like to give fellow gardeners by leaving a comment below. We would love to hear from you. 

Happy Gardening!