[jyl]

When I put a sprinkler system in my last house, I built a PVC manifold, electrically controlled valves at each outlet, with wired-in controller. You could put all that by where the water line goes into the house, controller attached to the wall, all shielded from view by the bushes. Backflow valve and manual shutoff valve between water line and the manifold. Filter on each circuit. Give yourself plenty of circuits, so you can have different things on their own watering cycle and not have too many sprinkler heads or drip emitters on one circuit. Put a garden hose into a bucket to measure your gallons/hour, and figure out what is too many.

Drip is easy to assemble and water efficient, requires painstakingly placing one emitter per plant and fiddling with micro-sprinklers. For a larger area you will probably want normal sprinklers. For rows of veg or bushes, soaker hose.