Time Of Day
We recommend you water the lawn at dawn. Watering during the day causes too much loss from evaporation & wind. Watering at night can cause fungus problems because the water droplets stay on the leaf surface until the sun hits them the following morning…they don’t evaporate at night. By watering at dawn, the loss from evaporation & wind is minimal.
Inspection of Your Sprinkler System
We recommend you run your sprinkler system during the day a few times each year and visually inspect the heads in each zone. Make sure the rotating sprinkler heads are still rotating back and forth. Make sure the nozzles aren’t clogged. Make sure there are no busted heads.
Yellow Areas In The Lawn
Very few sprinkler systems have 100% coverage. During drought conditions, the yellow areas in your lawn will tell you exactly where you are not getting adequate coverage from your sprinkler system. Even if your sprinklers are getting the yellow areas wet, they are not getting enough water to those areas. As you move out from the sprinkler head, less and less water is hitting the soil. The closer you are to the sprinkler head, the more water the soil gets.
May 1st thru October 1st
We recommend you set your sprinklers to run three days a week. If your sprinklers have a fixed spray pattern, run each zone for 20 minutes. If your sprinklers rotate back and forth, run each zone for 30 minutes. Keep an eye out for muddy areas that aren’t draining properly and adjust as necessary. During the heat of the summer it is helpful to occasionally soak the lawn by running the sprinklers two or three times in a row when you are home on a weekend or a day off.
October 1st thru May 1st
During this period, one time per week should be sufficient. Fixed pattern spray heads should still run for 10 to 20 minutes and rotating sprinklers should run for 20 to 30 minutes. It is important that you do not turn your sprinklers off during the winter. Even though your lawn is dormant, the roots are still alive and they still need moisture. Allowing your lawn to dry out during the winter promotes freeze damage. If you have st augustine grass, keeping the soil moist during freezing temperatures is especially important. The moisture in the soil acts as a conveyance mechanism to draw the heat from the earth’s core up to the soil surface. Lawns in dry soils will always have more freeze damage than lawns in moist soils. Do not run the sprinklers during freezing temperatures below 28 degrees as this can damage shrubs and flowers.
Watering St Augustine lawns with cool over night lows in spring & fall
One of the most common problems we see with St Augustine lawns is fungus problems in the spring and fall. Symptoms can include yellowing of leaf color, stringy appearance of grass just over the soil with few leaf blades and a general thinning or patchiness of the lawn. Fungus loves cool temperatures and damp conditions. Once you get it, there is very little, chemically, that can be done. We would rather see you under-water your st Augustine lawn in the spring and fall then over-water it. Too much water on st Augustine lawns in the spring and fall is a recipe for a sick lawn. If you have st Augustine, make sure you don’t over water when night time temperatures are dipping below 70 degrees.
Programming Your Sprinkler System
We don’t do sprinkler work outside of repairing what we accidentally damage with our lawn mowers. Jason Porter of Choice Irrigation will inspect and program your system for $75. His telephone number is 972-841-8631.