Watering Your Lawn

Water performs the same function in plants as blood in our bodies.  Without water, plants don’t stand a chance of survival! Having said that, lawns do need water, but not a lot of water.  Over watering can result in fungus and plant diseases. Just like overeating messes up our health, plants too can be affected by too much of a good thing.  A lot of us imagine that we are doing a good thing by our plants by giving them a lot of water, but caution is required. An understanding of different types of lawns and the water levels they require (ref. my eBook) will help produce a lush, healthy lawn.

How much water?

To determine accurately how much water is required and how frequently you need to water your lawn, look at the grass.  When it needs water, the blades will start wilting and instead of looking a beautiful light green, they will start looking a bit off color.  That is an indication that they need water. Usually 1 to 1 1/2 in. a week. Simple, isn’t it?

When watering, one needs to ensure that the water penetrates the ground really deep to encourage the growth of roots. What we see outside, is a direct result of what is inside, and hence, if the roots are not healthy, the grass itself will look bad.  To find out how deep the water needs to penetrate, you can dig a hole next to a grass plant and see how deep the roots are going.  The ball park number is between 8 and 12 inches normally.

The type of soil is also an indication of how much water your lawn requires and how much water it can hold.  Try pouring water into beach sand; because of the porous space between the grains, water penetrates really deep. Similarly, try pouring water into clay soil.  You will realize that it takes much longer and requires a lot more water to soak up and penetrate really deep.

When to water?

`Follow the sun’ is a good method.  Early mornings before the sun becomes hot or late afternoons when the weather is cool are ideal times for watering plants.  Why not during mid afternoon?  Try pouring water on a hot surface. What happens? There is a sizzling sound and puff! The water evaporates! That’s what is likely to happen if you water plants when the weather is very hot. 

How to water?

We love sprinklers!

Most of us love to watch sprinklers in action. The sound of water being sprinkled, the smell of wet soil, and the water soaked color of the grass can give many a poet a reason to write a sonnet or two. 

Sprinkler positioning is vital to its proper usage. What normally happens is, the sprinkler is not situated in a proper place and the sidewalk gets more water than the grass.  That happens because while the sprinkler may seem to be positioned in a good, strategic place, the speed of water which comes out could be far greater than originally calculated; this makes the water to come jettisoning out, straight to the sidewalk, while the grass looks on longingly. 

An environment tip

If it is rainy season, then let the rains do the work and conserve water! In fact, try rain harvesting.  Get a rain barrel which stores rain water and use this itself to water your lawn.