Now that summer is winding down and the kids are heading back to school it’s time to think about your irrigation watering schedule and lawn renovation. Mother Nature has been extremely tuff on your lawn and landscape this year. She provided a lot of water this spring and then a long, hot, dry spell until a week ago. A good average for zone run times are; rotors should run for 30 minutes and sprays for 15 minutes. Drip zones should run for 30 to 45 minutes. These are just guidelines since all yard conditions very from house to house and area to area. An easy rule to remember is if an area is to wet, turn the run time down and if it is to dry turn it up a little. Simply adjust for each zone for your water needs. It’s good practice to check and adjust your sprinkler controller every 10 days during the irrigation season depending on current weather conditions.
Now, we can go into a lot of different theories or philosophies on how often, how long, and when to water, but as long as you’re watering you’re off to a good start. The key to any watering schedule is to create healthy root growth for both your lawn “and” your landscape. So if you water for longer periods at a time and fewer times a week you will force the roots to reach for the water farther into the ground, the deeper the roots the stronger the plants/grass. That way if you’ve had some areas of stress in your lawn it should come back out of it when the temperature starts to come down so long as you keep giving it a steady dose of water (man made or natural), however some areas may have stressed a little too much and this is why we renovate the turf. I renovate and reseed my lawn every year.
Our maintenance department is getting ready to start lawn renovation in the next couple of weeks and with that there are a few things to remember. Once you get the seed down you should only water rotors for 5-8 minutes and sprays for 2-4 minutes. Set your program to water three times a day every day to keep the seed wet. Only do this for the first 2 weeks. Once you get seedlings to start you can back down to once a day for another week. After that, all you need to do is water 3 times a week for 20 minutes for rotors and 10 minutes for sprays.
All of the suggested times are guide lines and do not take in account good all natural rain water. Obviously Mother Nature provides better water than what we can pay for so remember to shut off your irrigation system when it’s raining. If you travel a lot or just can’t remember to adjust the controller for wet conditions we can install a rain sensor to do it for you. A rain sensor can be added onto any irrigation controller, new or old with the only exception being the old water hydraulic timers. We can even install wireless sensors so you don’t have to worry about having to see any unsightly wires. Once the rain sensor fills up to the level you have it set to it shuts the controller off until it dries out to allow it to water again. Hopefully this helps you bring your lawn back after a rough summer and keep it healthy going into next year.
Allan Shores
Irrigation & Lighting Department Manager