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The Cheap Sprinkler That Saved My Lawn

Over the years, I’ve tested an arsenal of sprinklers and each has let me down. I was ready to give up, until I found the perfect one.

the melnor minimax sprinklerPhoto by Mitch K.
Mitch Kwitek

By Mitch Kwitek

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Summer is do-or-die time for a lawn. If there’s a drought, grass might not come back the same when cooler and wetter months arrive in fall.

I don’t particularly care about my lawn — honestly, I’d rather kill it — but my dog loves playing catch on the grass. So every spring and summer, I do what must be done. I water the living hell out of it.

Why most sprinklers struggle

Over the years, I’ve tested an arsenal of sprinklers on my irregularly shaped lawn, and each one has failed me in different ways.

A basic $14 oscillating sprinkler spread too wide to be useful in narrow sections of my lawn, and it wasted water with overspray.

The one vintage impact sprinkler I’d been using for years fractured at the lawn spike making it virtually impossible to position. It also got me in trouble for spraying my wife’s iPad through an open window.

a collection of sprinklers that failed me
Clogged nozzles, broken plastic and bent lawn spikes in these sprinklers caused frustration. Please note how dead this grass is.
Photo by Mitch K.

Then I bought a set of impact sprinklers for under $10 that broke during the first setup. Perhaps a casualty of sun-damage from sitting outside on the big box store shelf for years.

Every time a sprinkler would fail, I would feel like the bigger failure, left unable to completely cover the zones of my lawn need water most. I was ready to give up, then I found it … the perfect sprinler.

How I found the perfect sprinkler

One day, I passed a house with a perfect lawn. My first instinct was to scoff that the sprinkler was running during the heat of the day (rookie mistake), but then I got distracted by the sprinkler itself: a boxy black affair with brightly colored adjustment levers, unlike the various types I knew all too well for letting me down.

It was the Melnor MiniMax Oscillator Sprinkler, I would later learn from a very helpful lawn and garden customer service representative at my local Jerry’s Home Improvement. “It’s fully adjustable,” Rhonda said as she proceeded to take the MiniMax out of the box to demonstrate the features.

The base lays flat on the lawn but there is also a tripod version. too. Flow rate is controlled using this knob located on the side. While pointed away from you, dialing the desired distance is easy.

melnor minimax pressure adjustment
To capture this demonstration of flow rate, I had to regulate the pressure at my spigot valve. It shoots way further than shown.
Video by Mitch K.

Forward and backward sweeping start and stop points are adjusted on each side of the sprinkler head.

adjusting the seeping range on the melnor minimax
Covering up to 4,000 sq. ft, the sweeping range adjustment tabs are quite easy to get dialed in when the sprinkler is moved to different zones.
Video by Mitch K.

Using tabs attached to the sprinkler nozzles, you can easily adjust the angle to accommodate side-to-side width.

melnor minimax nozzle angle adjustment
My favorite part of the nozzle adjustment is that it doesn’t need to be even on both sides. Even with an abnormally shaped lawn, I can get ideal coverage without overspray.
Video by Mitch K.

And lastly, the sprinkler head is 360-degree rotatable.

rotating the head on the melnor minimax
One of my biggest gripes with positioning lawn spike impact sprinklers is the rigidity of the hose. Set up an impact sprinkler for an hour and the hose has moved the sprinkler to hit an open window. This isn’t a problem with the MiniMax.
Video by Mitch K.

While the MiniMax’s advanced adjustable options are a lawn-saver for those of us with strangely shaped yards, it’s not necessarily for everyone. For filling in awkard gaps, however, you could hardly find a better option than the MiniMax.

It hasn’t been a single-purchase lawn fix. I might still invest in a smart water timer like the Orbit B-hyve to help me stay on schedule because long and infrequent waterings are actually better for your lawn to promote deep root development. But I’m probably never going to get around to installing a full sprinkler system that wastes water every other day.

I’d much rather use that time to play fetch.

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