Irrigation Solutions

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• Your lawn needs at least 1”-1 ½” of water per week, year-round, During the winter, too.

• Water deeply 2-3 times per week, rather than daily.

• Water as early in the morning as you can.

• If you can’t easily push a 6” screwdriver into your lawn, you’re not watering enough.

• You will need to water more in the heat, especially if you have a fescue lawn.

• Don’t water so long that water runs down the street. 

• If you have automatic sprinklers, check them regularly to be sure you’re getting complete coverage.

• If a brown area doesn’t respond to watering, look for another problem.
   

Let’s go over these points in more detail.

 

Your lawn needs at least 1"-1 ½ ” of water per week, year-round. During the winter, too. Lawns that are dry going into winter or during winter are more stressed and more likely to sustain winter damage. How do you know how much water you’re getting? First of all, buy a rain gauge. If you get an inch of water in it per week, that's good. If you aren't, you need to water the lawn. 

 

How long should you water to get one inch? We can’t tell you that, because we don’t know what kind of sprinkler you have or what your water pressure is like. With automatic sprinklers, it’s usually one hour. But you can measure that yourself. Just get an empty tuna can, which is 1” tall, and place it where your sprinkler is hitting. Run your sprinkler and see how long it takes to get a half inch of water in the can – just like a rain gauge. Usually it’s about 30 minutes. If so, then watering 20 minutes, 3 times per week will get an inch of water on your lawn, and watering 30 minutes 3 times per week will get 1 ½” down. Bear in mind that during extreme heat, you will need to water more, due to evaporation and heat stress on the grass.

 

Water deeply 2-3 times per week, rather than daily. Watering daily will give your grass a shallow root system. Shallow root systems dry out fast and weaken your turf. Watering deeply 3 times per week will give your grass a deep root system, making it stronger and more drought-resistant. 

 

Water as early in the morning as you can. Watering early in the morning ensures your lawn dries completely before nightfall. A wet lawn at night, on a regular basis, can lead to fungus and disease problems. Also, it’s cooler and less windy in the morning, so you have less evaporation, which will save money on your water bill and take less time to water your lawn. If morning watering is impossible, watering at any time is always better than not watering at all!

 

If you can’t easily push a 6” screwdriver into your lawn, you’re not watering enough. Watering 1"-1 ½ ” per week is a guideline. Different soil types need different amounts. Soil is rarely composed of one type, but rather a combination of clay and sand, which makes loam. A sandy loam won’t hold moisture as well as a clayish-loam. Clay holds moisture better (think mud,) but the water is slow to penetrate it. You can tell what your dominant type of soil is by getting a moist handful and squeezing it.  Clay will smush into a ball that doesn’t fall apart. Sand will stick together when squeezed, but not for very long. 

 

You will need to water more in the heat, especially if you have a fescue lawn. You may need to water more in the summer heat to keep your lawn from becoming drought-stressed, especially if high temperatures are accompanied by high winds. If we have extreme temperatures – high 90s and over 100 – for a prolonged time period, you might want to: 1) raise your mowing height a little, 2) water lightly daily to cool off the grass (this is especially true for fescue). Grass needs more water during the heat because it also uses water as an internal coolant. Daily watering in the heat should be in addition to your regular deep waterings.

 

Don’t water so long that water runs down the street. If water starts running down the street before you get your half inch on there, turn off the water and wait for it to soak in, then resume watering. This might happen if you haven’t had time to water for a while. If it happens every time you water, either you’re waiting too long in-between watering, or you may have a compaction problem. Compaction occurs in heavy clay soil or in high traffic areas. Aeration may alleviate the problem temporarily, but usually you have to change the conditions causing the compaction for long-term relief. You might want to consider an application of an environmentally friendly liquid aeration. 

If you have automatic sprinklers, check them regularly to be sure you’re getting complete coverage. Have you ever driven by a neighborhood entrance or along a business with nice landscaping that has this one sprinkler head aimed out at the street, and every day it’s on, spraying in the street, even if it’s raining? Watch your sprinklers every once in a while to be sure you don’t have one like that!

 

If a brown area doesn’t respond to watering, look for another problem. Assuming your sprinkler coverage is adequate, you might have a fungus, Spring Dead Spot, chinch bugs, construction debris buried a foot under the soil, or any number of problems that mimic drought stress. Take a closer look, or call us to come out and look at it.