HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU WATER YOUR LAWN?

Proper maintenance of your lawn is essential to a lush, green, healthy yard. You want to ensure you water it long enough and often enough to avoid brown and dead spots and you also need to water it sparsely enough to prevent a shallow root system and muddy patches; it’s a delicate balance to strike. Whether your goal is easier maintenance or curbside appeal, you need to know how often you should water your lawn.

If the idea of keeping your yard in perfect health seems completely overwhelming, you’re probably overthinking it. Lawn maintenance can be simple; you just need to know a few tricks and consider hiring the right kind of help.

The answer to how often should you water your lawn is relatively straightforward. Just follow a few golden rules, and you’re on your way to a healthy green oasis.

• Most lawns require 1″ to 1 ½” of water per week, even in the winter
• Water several times a week, but never daily
• Watering early in the morning is better than midday
• Your lawn needs more water the hotter it is outside
• Don’t over saturate
• Keep an eye on automatic sprinklers for complete coverage
• For persistent brown patches, look at other sources of discoloration

Water early in the morning to prevent fungus and disease at night. If you start watering in the afternoon, your grass won’t be completely dry before nightfall, which introduces the chance of disease. Avoiding midday also has the benefit of less evaporation. Fescue lawns are especially prone to sun damage. During the heat of summer, your yard, especially a fescue lawn, will require more water. When the temperature reaches the 90’s or gets to the 100 zone, you need to raise your mowing height.

If your water is running down the street, you’re either over watering, creating a shallow root system, you’re not watering often enough, or you have a compaction problem. Try watering smaller amounts at a time, turn off the water to let it soak in, and then continue watering. If you’re not watering often enough, work on increasing to 2-3 times a week for an average of ½” each time. If you have a compaction problem, you may need to aerate.

If you have automatic sprinklers, you need to occasionally monitor them to ensure you’re getting full coverage and aren’t wasting water on the street.

Read more about how to handle stubborn brown spots : How To Prevent Urine From Killing Grass