If you’re perusing our website, there’s a good chance you value your lawn and landscaping care, which hey, we do too! Proper lawn care is what we do best here in Jacksonville, Florida. We know what to do to make your yard look beautiful, well kept, and provide unique value through the visual appearance of your lawn. If you’re looking to learn more about how to accomplish this on your own, you’ve come to the right place!
When it comes to watering your lawn, most lawns need 1 to 1.5 inches of water per week. This water can be naturally occurring (rain) or from sprinklers. Many find that watering their lawn 1-3 times a week is sufficient, just be wary of overwatering!
How Long Does it Take My Lawn to Reach 1-1.5 Inches of Water?
This one is for you to figure out with some fun experimentation! If it’s a particularly rainy week, it should be easy to track the forecast and predicted rain level, which will save you a bit of labor and time, allowing nature to take its course on your behalf. If it’s not rainy, however, there are a few different ways to track if your lawn is moist enough.
Measure with Cans
Place cans across your lawn and time how long it takes the cans to collect 1 to 1.5 inches of water in each can. Since sprinkler patterns can vary, find the average time it takes to fill the cans and use this time moving forward.
Do the Math
If you have a sprinkler system built-in, the flow rate (gallons per minute) should be available from the manufacturer. The number of minutes to run your sprinkler system is equal to the square footage of your lawn multiplied by 0.62 gallons (which is 1 inch of water per square foot), divided by the sprinkler flow rate.
Check the Soil
If you’re short on time, a quick hack is to try to stick a screwdriver 6 inches deep into the soil; if it doesn’t budge, you likely need to water your lawn.
To make this more calculated and to figure out future timing, place a screwdriver into the soil every 15 minutes during your watering to test how deep the water has moved. Mark the time once the soil has been soaked to a depth of at least 6 inches—that’s how long you’ll need to water your lawn each time in the future.
What Time of Day Should I Water My Lawn?
If possible, it’s a great practice to water your lawn early in the morning before the sun comes up or shortly thereafter. Doing so allows the grass time to absorb water before the heat of the day hits. Unfortunately, when lawns are watered while the sun is out and in full swing, the sun can burn off a lot of the water before it efficiently gets to the root of the grass. Likewise, when lawns are watered at night, the water droplets sit on top of the grass as opposed to being absorbed, which encourages fungi to grow and puts your lawn at risk for developing ‘leaf spots’ which are unattractive for lawns.
How Does Warmer/Cooler Weather Effect Grass Watering?
In cooler months, you will generally water grass less frequently compared to warmer months. From November to April, usually, once a week is sufficient. From April-October, two or three times a week is often best when it comes to watering your lawn considering the sun will dry out the lawn much quicker during these hot months.
If you have any other questions about lawn care, do not hesitate to reach out to Jacksonville’s lawn care experts, Skinner Lawns! We are here to help with any questions or concerns; as a family-owned business, we treat our customers like family and you can speak to the owner at any time by calling us at (904) 720-2515.