For most of us, warm summer months mean longer nights to enjoy the outdoors — refreshing dinners on the patio, and green grass for the kids to play in.
Anyone who owns a home also knows that getting that green grass takes some work. Fertilizing, cutting and watering the lawn are all important if you’d like to achieve the carpet of green stalks that so many admire.
But do you know when the best time to water your lawn is? If not, you may be wasting water and preventing your grass from growing altogether.
First things first, you should assess the grass in your yard and understand what type it is. All grasses have different requirements for watering and cutting so knowing which you are dealing with is a great first clue. You’ll also want to take a look at the condition of your grass. Have you mowed it higher per recommendations so that it can retain water better? Is it brown in color because it hasn’t rained much and it's been dry and hot out? These should all provide an indication for whether or not you need to water your lawn.
Once you’ve figured out which type of grass of you have and the current condition it's in, see what experts recommend of watering. Typically watering in the early morning will help you to waste the least amount of water because it is absorbed into the ground best and requires less to achieve saturation. This also means you’re depleting fewer nutrients and using less water, which will keep your costs lower. You’ll also want to pick a time of day, typically the morning, when wind speeds are lower to keep water from being dried up before it's absorbed into the ground. Watering late at night, while more beneficial than later during the hot summer days, can trigger mold and other diseases to grow.
Watering your grass too much can also have negative effects. Overwatering can cause bacteria to thrive, rotting the root base. The best approach is to set up a watering schedule from 3-5 days a week that waters well enough each time and offers enough time in between for the root to dry before a new watering takes place. Instead of putting too much effort into remembering when to water you could also set up a timer system for your sprinklers that will water only at the frequency you define.
Check out Sprinkler System Store for a full line of irrigation timers, controllers, hose faucet timers, drip irrigation timers and misting system timers that make watering your lawn easier than ever.
