How to Water Your Lawn and Conserve Water

Here are guidelines for watering your lawn that will give it the best possible care while conserving water.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 
   Water your lawn in the early morning or early evening.

   why water your lawn?
   Some people don’t feel it is necessary to water your lawn at all. Under normal circumstances, that is probably true. These days, with valid concerns about use of resources and effects of behavior on our ecosystems, it is a good idea to collect as much information as possible before watering.
   
   The principle reason for watering a lawn, at any time, is to protect the grass by keeping the roots properly nurtured. Unless air temperatures are excessive, your lawn will probably survive just fine without watering…even if the tops of the grass blades turn brown.
   
   But during periods of excessive heat, you will want to protect your grass or you may have to spend a lot of money to replace it later.

2. preserving your lawn
   One tip is to keep your grass at least one to three inches long during periods when you feel it is necessary to water. This protects the grass roots from excessive sun exposure and allows the grass to trap moisture for longer periods of time. That also allows you to water less, which goes a long way toward preserving water.

3. when to water
   The consensus seems to be that lawn watering should take place in the early morning, 5:00 to 8:30 a.m., or in the evening. The reason for this is to prevent evaporation that will take place during sunny hours. Your purpose is to keep as much of the water on the grass as possible so that it gets down into the roots and nurtures them.
   
   Watering at night might seem like a good idea, but watering at night will allow the water to stay on the grass too long and that will make your lawn vulnerable to disease, mold and fungal growth.
   
   If somebody tells you that you should not water your lawn during midday hours because the grass will be burned, they are quoting “conventional wisdom” and it is not accurate. I read one sage’s take on this who said that if the sun got hot enough to “burn” the grass the odds were good that the water would have evaporated long before that happened.
   
   There is one exception to this rule. If the night temperature does not drop below 68 degrees Fahrenheit, watering at night is permissible. Reasoning behind this exception is that the temperature is still warm enough to cause sufficient evaporation.

4. how much to water
   According to information from King County Water Conservation Program, Seattle, Washington, the average amount of water used to water a lawn is 7 gallons per minute.
   
   The way around that loss of water is to water your lawn only half an inch to one inch, once a week, under normal circumstances. How much water is half an inch to an inch? Take an empty tuna can, place it on the lawn where it will be hit by your sprinkler and stop when the can has filled to the top. That is an inch.
   
   Watering every three days seems to work well for high heat situations. If you follow that schedule, you should water at least half an hour each day.

Tips & Warnings

• water conservation tips: It is also a good idea to get a watering head and a stationary sprinkler with settings that output large droplets. The larger the droplets, the faster and better you can deliver the water to the grass. Obviously, it is also good to use a sprinkler that can reach a maximum area of lawn to minimize the time needed for watering. Even better is the use of timed watering, soaker hoses, or drip irrigation. Use of "gray" water and collecting rain water in a large container for later use are also ways to conserve the water you use on your lawn.
• You could also consider replacing your grass with native plantings that don’t require lots of watering to keep them healthy. However, that’s probably worth a complete article in itself.
• And this should be obvious...avoid watering the sidewalk, street or driveway.