There are various ways to water your lawn. Are they all good ways? The most important thing is not to overwater your lawn. I would generally say a lawn needs anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 inches of water per week. This includes what Mother Nature might drop on it.
To find out how many inches you are watering your lawn, you can set empty tuna cans out to measure how many inches and how long it takes to achieve the inches you want to put on your lawn. Do this while your sprinklers are going or even with rainfall.
The chart on the left will give you something to follow.
Watering too often causes a couple of problems. One being that frequent shallow watering causes roots to grow short, which will cause drought and other problems. Overwatering will feed the weeds, and they love it when that happens.
Another tip is that when you water your lawn, try to do it early in the day to keep it from evaporating in the sun.
I will cover a few ways that are used to water a lawn and whether it is a good choice or not. This way, you can decide for yourself which way you are going to water your lawn this summer.
- Hand Watering The Lawn – Many people will take a hose and nozzle to try and water their lawns. But how do you know if you have watered too much? That is the biggest problem with doing it this way. It works fine with flowers and plants, but not so much so with lawns unless you are watering small patches where you planted grass seed.
- Sprinklers – This is the way most people water their lawns. There are different types of sprinklers to consider.
- Oscillating Sprinklers (back & forth)
- Impact Sprinklers (short pulses of water)
- Stationary Sprinklers (sprays continuously in one section)
- Traveling Sprinklers (looks like toy tractors with propellers on top)
Click here to see a selection of sprinklers in the Old School Lawn Store.
All of these are handy for large yards, and they have their advantages and disadvantages. They are fine to use, but pick the one that is going to work for you with respect to your size yard and how you want to distribute the water.
- Permanent or Built-In Systems – This is probably the best way to water your lawn. The cost to have this type of watering system varies. You don’t have to worry about the bulky hose around the yard. It is by far the most efficient and convenient way. You just set the timer, and the system does the rest for you.
You can incur a lot of cost with this system because you have to dig and run pipes, and if you are in a cold State, you have to have the system winterized annually if you want to keep it operating properly.
- Drip Irrigation – This method is not reasonable for watering lawns. This involves letting water ooze out of a hose, soaking the root area of whatever is growing. This may be fine for plants and gardens, but not for your lawn.
Below, I added a video for the DIY people who would like to add an in-ground system or, built-in system. I think some of you might try it. Click Here for the link to get the system.
I hope this post helped someone out on their summer lawn and garden this year. Look at the video below for more tips. Please don’t hesitate to leave any comments or questions below. Together, we can make everyone’s yard beautiful.