For what it's worth, it should be noted that, while PHP will generally handle connection-reuse for you so long as you keep using the same connection strings, as in the following example:
<?php
$before_conn1 = microtime(true);
$db1 = pg_connect($conn_string);
$before_conn2 = microtime(true);
$db2 = pg_connect($conn_string);
$after_conn2 = microtime(true);
echo($before_conn2 - $before_conn1); echo("\n");
echo($after_conn2 - $before_conn2); ?>
...as nice as it would have been, this does not hold true for async connections; you have to manage those yourself and you can't follow up an async connection with a blocking one later on as an easy way to wait for the connection process to complete before sending queries.
<?php
$before_conn1 = microtime(true);
$db1 = pg_connect($conn_string, PGSQL_CONNECT_ASYNC);
sleep(1);
$before_conn2 = microtime(true);
$db2 = pg_connect($conn_string);
$after_conn2 = microtime(true);
echo($before_conn2 - $before_conn1); echo("\n");
echo($after_conn2 - $before_conn2); ?>