Abstract: A web-based irrigation controller with application server can avoid need for access points for irrigation controller communications to the application server, need for configurations on any number of any type of web-based appliances to communicate to the application server, and can provide easy access to giant databases of weather and plant growing information, automatic control and simplification for the plant and lawn growing effort, easy access to reports of actual water usage and power usage and maintenance problems, using sprinklers in an unusual manner to scare away birds from a freshly seeded lawn, reducing lawn water usage for unskilled users by backing off lawn timings until the user intervenes, slow seasonal adjustment to watering times without need for application server intervention, life-cycle based watering schedules based on types of garden plantings and easy for the user to follow the actions of a local amateur master gardener in growing similar plants.