When it comes to mowing your lawn and realizing how to take care of them to have that professional looking lawn, it’s important that you also know that they take a lot of work to maintain. Some people are disappointed often because they think all they have to do is mow it, or even seed it and water it a bit. But did you know that just how much you water your lawn, as well as the time of day that you water your lawn plays a humongous role in creating that lawn for you as well? In this guide, we’re going to tell you how long to water your lawn, and when to do it, but it’s a bit more complicated than you may think.
Never Too Little, Never Too Much
There’s a fine line between watering your lawn too much, and not watering it enough. Some people think that the natural rain, and your grass types, etc. – all of these factors – make a difference in how much to water your lawn. The cold hard truth is that these aren’t factors that matter solely. Your water needs about 1, up to 1.5 inches of water every single week in order to grow well, and be easier to maintain. Too much water can make the grass too tough, thick, cause burning, and more. You should actually even water your lawn in the winter (something a lot of people don’t even know).
Climate Matters
The good thing, is that you don’t need to run and install lawn sprinklers just yet. Whether you’re planting your lawn, or even if you have one established, but live in a pretty temperate climate that gets the above average of precipitation every week, then you don’t even need to use anything to water your lawn. Mother Nature will do it for you! During the winter months, most tropical and temperate climate lawns don’t even need watering during the winter due to the snow they accumulate throughout the colder months (which also helps to water the lawn every time it melts). Most people don’t even realize their grass is growing even when it looks like it’s dead in the winter. That’s when the seeds are doing their work, and the roots are sustaining the already grown grass!
The Timing of Watering Your Lawn
Right along with watering your lawn for too long, or too short of a time (because of adequate water amounts), you need to put water into your lawn at the right time of the day. Some people will try to water their lawns and have their sprinklers going in the morning, the afternoon, and even the early evening (when the sun is at its warmest temperatures). This is DEFINITELY something you don’t want to do. Other places will water their lawns late at night, and this may be appropriate for certain types of grass that burns easily, but not necessarily for most types of lawns.
The best time to mow your lawn is actually in the very early morning. No, we’re not talking about between 7AM – 9AM, we’re talking about early. When the watering happens during the morning, when the sun is not quite up (up to just after sunrise), the temperatures are usually the coolest; even on the hottest days of summer. This time is when you want to water your lawn because your grass will soak up the moisture like a sponge during this time, and not end up burning or letting the water evaporate as much. If you water your lawn too late in the day, or even when the ground temperature is extremely warm, your watering may be pointless because all of the water meant for your grass roots will end up evaporating. The reason why early morning is best, is because in the evening, your lawn can experience certain vegetation diseases that can harm your lawn, and surrounding plants. Also, this is the time that fungus grows more which you won’t see right away until your lawn is starting to perish. If your grass is too wet when it gets dark outside, it may be susceptible to contracting these diseases or fungus.
Not All at Once Either!
Some people think that they need to water their lawn every day, little bits at a time. Unfortunately, that can dry out the roots a lot faster, rather than keeping your ground properly hydrated. And not watering your lawn enough can of course cause your lawn to have troubles as well. To fix this easy solution, you don’t have to water your lawn once a week in one big massive load either. Try making sure your lawn gets watered at least two or three times every week, with just about a half inch of precipitation. This can change with factors like weather, so if it’s supposed to rain once throughout the week (about a half inch of precipitation or more), you can probably skip watering your lawn that day.
Watering your lawn to get that one and a half inches is kind of confusing. How are you supposed to measure the precipitation that your lawn is getting? Well, if you’re watering about three times every single week, you’re going to want to water your lawn in shorter bursts – twenty to thirty minutes is usually more than enough time. You can also test this by setting a small container in your lawn when you run your sprinklers. Set a timer on it to find out how many minutes minutes and see how much (in inches) you end up watering to equal an inch and a half. Then you can divide that time by two or three to get your multiple watering times. Of course, grass seed is also a little different too. It normally takes watering before you plant your lawn, about ten minutes a day when you do spread the seeds, and water about ten minutes in the morning and evening for approximately ten minutes until sproutlings emerge. Once you start getting a lush lawn of sprouts, you can water your lawn as normal. Again, make sure that it’s in the early or later part of the day.
Conclusion
If you follow every one of these things we mentioned, you’ll be able to tell if your lawn is getting enough water easier. Nobody likes to make mistakes, and when you make them with your lawn, it can suffer and make for a less flourishing established lawn than your surrounding neighbors. Follow this guide’s information, and no matter what kind of lawn or grass you have, you should be fine.