If you have a minimal system watering a few dozen plants from a hose faucet water source and someone is usually home to turn it on, you may just want to use the MLWT-EGG Timer, which screws onto your hose faucet accepts the drip hose you had screwed onto that faucet and works exactly like an egg timer; you turn the dial to the number of minutes you want to water and you walk away. The Egg Timer is in the $25 category.

The next step up would be the MLWT-DIAL Timer, which also screws onto your hose faucet, uses a 9 volt battery and allows you to program watering times and days. If you are going away for a week or more and expect your plants to be green when you return, this might be a good investment at approximately  $50

If you have 50 or more plants set up to water according to differing water needs, you may want to get complicated and go for a true irrigation control timer connected to one or more solenoid valve(s) to control your set-up with seperate watering zones.

You can still use your water faucet for a water source, but will use solenoid valves to control the watering frequency and time(s) by building a manifold using pvc pipe or flex tubing to the solenoid valve(s).

Step one would be to place plants that like lots of water on one common drip zone. Place plants that like less water on a seperate drip zone. Then connect in a solenoid valve from your manifold to control each seperate drip zone.

The timer you will use should have at least 2-4 stations. An excellent choice is the Hunter XC200i or Rainbird E4-c both of which have 2 or more watering stations available and are in the $65 category, but any inexpensive dependable 4 station controller will suffice. Once your Controller and Valves are installed, and your Controller programmed, you are all set.