Are You Watering Your Lawn Correctly?

Watering the lawn sounds like a simple enough task. Turn the sprinkler on. Turn the sprinkler off. Right?

Not quite. There’s a lot more that goes into it regarding timing, frequency, and other various factors. Even with timed and automated irrigation systems, there are still a variety of factors that you control and could be potentially doing wrong. In fact, watering incorrectly can have some pretty dire consequences, such as wasting water, wasting time, and actually damaging your grass. Here are some general tips to follow for watering your lawn correctly and effectively:

• Water between 6:00 and 10:00 A.M.
  This is the best time to water your grass because it’s just waking up, and the temperature at this time of day is generally the lowest—ideal for minimizing the amount of water lost through evaporation.

• Water deeply and infrequently.
  Frequent, shallow watering is highly ineffective and encourages shallow root growth. This makes the grass weaker and less established. The best way to ensure that your water is penetrating the root zone is to confirm the soil is wet 6 inches deep by checking with a wooden implement about an hour after watering. You can learn more about calculating your schedule and properly irrigating by reading our Irrigation article.

• When rain is sufficient, don’t irrigate.
  Often, rain does enough. The best rainstorms are the long, slow drizzles that slowly and deeply wet your soil. However, too much water runoff occurs with short, heavy downpours – Especially after periods with little to no rain because the soil’s surface needs to absorb the water quickly enough. Check to ensure the ground is wet 6 inches deep after a rain event. There’s no need to waterlog your grass if proper soil saturation is achieved. A good practice would be to watch weather predictions and turn off your sprinklers if it’s expected to rain later in the day.

If you have any questions or are interested in fresh sod, contact The Grass Outlet today.