Riverside Cemetery

Riverside Cemetery’s irrigation system needed resurrecting. The manually operated quick-coupler system took too long and too much labor to cover the cemetery’s 24 irrigated acres of lawns. Such inefficiency led to high labor costs and stressed turf, especially during the summer months. The solution: a Rain Bird automatic irrigation system featuring Falcon rotors with Rain Curtain™ nozzles. Falcon rotor’s adjustability and complete range of nozzles enable effective coverage to improve the cemetery’s turf. In just eight hours, the Falcon rotor covers all the lawns evenly and automatically – despite the cemetery’s many challenges.

Old System Falls Short

Riverside Cemetery is located in the northern Wyoming town that was founded by William “Buffalo Bill” Cody in 1896. The century-old cemetery is the final resting place for many of the region’s earliest pioneers. Its 32 total acres are conspicuous for stretches of bluegrass and tall evergreens that stand in striking contrast to the surrounding brown slopes. With only seven to nine inches of rainfall yearly, along with gravely soil inherent to the region, green turf in Cody is unique.

Keeping the cemetery’s turf beautiful had been a demanding proposition for many years. The cemetery’s original irrigation system took the attention of two full-time employees and part-time summer help. In addition, the system operated on such low water pressure that only one small area could be watered at a time. This meant that it would take a full week to water the entire site, with some zones left without water for several days. During the region’s hot summers, the turf water demands increased – and so did the brown spots. Complicating things further are the site’s many vertical obstructions, including tall monuments, headstones and mature evergreen trees that blocked spray and affected coverage.

With these issues in mind, the Cemetery District decided to install an automatic irrigation system. To do the job, the district hired landscape architect and irrigation consultant Carl Thuesen, ASLA, of Billings, Montana.

Falcon Rotor Tackles Site Obstacles

Thuesen’s challenge was to design a modern, automatic system that would water the cemetery’s 24 acres of turf within an eight-hour water window and improve coverage. To do this, he designed a Rain Bird automatic system featuring 334 Rain Bird Falcon rotors with Rain Curtain nozzles.

Thuesen knew that the Falcon rotor and its patented Rain Curtain nozzles had advantages. First, color-coded Rain Curtain nozzles are available in a variety of sizes and flow rates. Thuesen chose a size 16 nozzle (brown color) which has a flow of 17.5 gpm, a precipitation rate of 0.85 inches per hour and a radius of 63 feet at 70 PSI. With the aid of a booster pump, the required precipitation rate and extended coverage area meant that more water could be applied over a greater area and in less time, ensuring that the entire site would be watered in eight hours.

Second, Falcon rotors have an adjustable arc pattern and radius which allow them to compensate for the many site obstacles. Thuesen spaced heads closer than normal and used Falcon rotor’s radius and arc adjustment features to fine tune coverage in the field. “This compensated for the headstones and large trees that may have punched holes in the spray pattern resulting in poor coverage,” he said.

Completing the Rain Bird system are three PAR-24-PP field satellites, 73 PESB-PRS-B valves, 45 44-RC quick-coupling valves and 131 1804 Series spray heads.

The new Rain Bird automatic irrigation system greened up Riverside Cemetery’s turf in much less time, with much less water, and reduced labor expenses. “The cemetery’s lawns look better than ever,” said Thuesen. “Grass is uniformly green throughout the summer, even in July and August, which always saw burn-out in past years. The Falcon heads are in their third season at the cemetery and we haven’t had to replace any of them because of wear.

“I have been involved in irrigation design for about 25 years now and we do a lot of irrigation systems for cemeteries, sports fields, large parks and golf courses,” Thuesen continued. “We are very familiar with all the products that are out there and can say that the Falcon rotor is definitely a cut above.”