Setting up drip lines

In a bid to save water and to ensure that the bougainvillea in our backyard survives without neglect, I have been trying to set up a drip line to it. Before reading up on drip irrigation and scouring YouTube videos, I somehow had the wrong idea that the drip lines are so slow that it needs to run continuously and also that there's no real need for a timer. Well, the collective wisdom of the internet got rid of that stupid notion quickly.

The first attempt was a poorly thought out hasty experiment.

sketch of my drip line plan
drip line piping hanging in the air

After drawing up a rough plan of all the required components and the layout, I went with Plan B. Just to avoid burying the drip line in the ground.

That... turned out to be a failure.

Not only did I fail to consider the weight of the water sagging the pipes, I had no idea about the stress on the hose splitter due to constant water pressure + water hammer arrester + hose timer + backflow stopper + filter + 25 psi pressure regulator doohickey. The splitter thread came undone in under 12 hours. That's what you get for bad planning and buying cheap stuff.

a hose splitter with a broken thread

So, what do we get from the failed attempt? Knowledge. And a healthy amount of caution. The second attempt was a lot better.

a drip line set up with a hose spliter and timer
1/2 inch drip pipe
drip line going to the roots of bougainvillea plant
drip line on a marigold plant
drip line on another marigold plant
drip line on a potted jasmine plant

Switched to a sturdier hose splitter and anchored the pipes to the ground with stakes. Also extended the drip to marigolds and a jasmine. The bougainvilleas are on one gallon emitters and the rest on half a gallon. So far this has held up for the past 10 days.

The bougainvilleas have started to flower more but the marigolds have it rough even with regular watering and basking in the sun. Perhaps not basking but baking. This summer is brutal and its chances of survival seem really low.

I have a mint plant that's trying its damn hardest to survive indoors. 

a tiny mint plant growing indoors in a reddish pot

This would have been sitting in the trash if not for those tiny new leaves that seemed not to give a flying fuck to the rest of the plant which was dead and rotting. So I decided to give it another chance by pruning away the dead parts and repotting in a bigger pot with new soil. Lets see how much fight it has left in it.