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Do My Own Lawn Care - How to Water a Lawn

By DoMyOwn staff

Watering a lawn is one of those things that you either get right, or get completely wrong! Too much water, you risk disease problems! Not enough water, and your lawn could die! In this episode, Paul shows you how to water a lawn and goes over some tips to help make sure you do it right.

 Do My Own Lawn Care - How to Water a Lawn Video Play

Video Transcript

Let's talk about water!

More specifically , let's talk about how to water your lawn.

To start off, lets talk about frequency, or how often you should water your lawn. And that's going to depend on a list of factors.

Soil type, sun light, grass type, regional climate, are there water restrictions where you live? The list can go on and on.

Two inches of irrigation throughout the week is pretty standard, so two watering's of about one inch, that's going to be pretty normal for a lot of established lawns. And we'll talk about how to measure that later on in the video.

If we're talking about new lawns, you want to go lighter and more frequent, so about 10 to 15 minutes each day.

And if we're talking about newly seeded lawns, you want to try and water twice daily. The goal is to keep that top layer of soil moist, consistently, until the seed has a chance to establish itself, and starts to germinate.

Well, looks like the suns trying to break through the clouds! Before I go on to any other tips, let me show you a few things.

Just to give you an update and a comparison of where we're at. So this side of the sidewalk, I've purposely neglected. Haven't sprayed it with anything, and I know, I'm risking these weeds blowing into the main yard and re-establishing themselves but I'm keeping an eye on it, and I'm going to get it under control. But I've purposely neglected it because I wanted something to compare it to.

So this is what the yard use to look like. Tons and tons of weeds, some grass, mostly weeds. And this is what the main portion of the yard looks like now. Really looking good! I know I got a lot more work I got to do. I need to do some more fertilizer applications, things like that. But over all, I'm really happy! Starting to see the Bermuda fill into the bare spots. It's just starting to fill in, it's looking good. We're getting there! Starting to see good results.

Not sure if that's showing up very well on camera or not, but the Poa Annua is starting to yellow and die. Got a nice big brown spot of it over here, but the stuff that I used to kill it off is really working. It's doing well. But again, I know it's not the last bout I'm going to have with it. I'm going to have to retreat to really kick it out of the yard.

Over here on this side of the yard and in the back, it's a different story. If you remember, I said I was going to break up my rehab program, and focus on just certain parts of the yard. Focusing on the front mainly. Kind of doing a little bit of work in the back and on the side here, like overseeding, and things of that nature. But for the most part, not really focusing on this.

But what I did want to show you was some results of my overseeding.

Now I know I got some weeds still sprinkled in the mix, but all of this use to be nothing but moss. But after overseeding, and watering, which we're talking about today, I'm starting to see green grass pop up. I over seeded this area with a tall dense shade fescue mix, and I'm starting to see it sprout up throughout the yard.

Now I still got a lot of work to do on this side and in the back. And if you'll remember I said I was going to break up my rehab program. I wasn't going to focus so much on this and the back, as I was on the front, but it's still getting some tender love and care. Starting to see results back here as well, but we got a long ways to go.

Up through here, I still got some weeds and moss problems. But again, starting to see some grass sprout up from an overseeding.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before in some other videos, but as far as when you want to water, right before day break. If watering late in the evening or at night time, not advisable. You're setting your lawn up for some disease problems.

Grass is naturally designed and is really good at catching water and knowing what to do with it. So when it rains, it knows what to do with that rain water.

But if rain is not happening, wait until the yard starts to go brown or starts to wilt before scheduling out your watering program.

And also remember that if it's hot and dry, the lawn may start to go dormant. And this is easily fixed. All you have to do is wait for some rain fall or start watering and it will spring back to life and green back up.

Don't fret!

Speaking of rain it's really cloudy today and it's ugh, looks like it's threatening to rain on me. So, I need to hurry up and show you how to measure out that one inch of water I was talking about earlier. And it's called, "The Tuna Can Trick"

Now what you're going to need for the Tuna Can Trick, obviously a tuna can, a permanent marker, and a tape measure or a ruler. Whatever you got!

What you do first is simply just take your tape measure or ruler, put it in there, find an inch, and mark it off in the can. Just like that.

Now that we've got the can marked off, all we've got to do is place it in the yard, kick on the irrigation system, and once the can fills up with water to that one inch mark, that's our inch of water for the yard, we can turn the system off, we're good to go.

As far as where to place the can, that's going to depend on the irrigation system you've got. Basically all you have to do is take the can and place it in the yard where ever the irrigation system you're using stops throwing water, and I'll show you what that looks like and how to do it.

Now typically at this point in the video I've got some fast paced music and a sped up montage to show you how to do this, but we're going to change things up a little bit.

Going old school because my wallet can't the fancy sprinkler systems but I got that going. But I got that going, I got my tuna can sitting out here in the yard, where this sprinkler stops throwing water. And so basically I'll let that go until it gets to that one inch mark. Once it's gotten there, I know that I've gotten enough water in this area, and I can cut off the sprinkler.

So, there we go! Almost to the one inch mark, so I'm going to call it good!

And, that, my friends, is the Tuna Can Trick!

Whether you've got an old school sprinkler like what I've just used or if you've got a irrigation system with sprinkler heads and an automatic timer, take the time to observe and understand how your irrigation system works.

Whether you've got the fancy system or you're going old school like me, just make sure that water is over lapping in the different areas of your yard.

Another thing to keep in mind with irrigation system, is take note where it's either puddling or hitting hard surfaces, like your driveway or your sidewalk, where ever you might be wasting water, and adjust accordingly.

Every now and then also take the time to grab a trowel or a spade and dig down into your yard and see how deeply the water is penetrating the soil.

This will also help you take stock of how well your grass roots are establishing, how deep their going, and if you've got any kind of soil compaction going on.

Healthy grass roots are going to reach about four inches into the soil. So anything less than that and you've either got some compaction or other issues going on and you should just kind of evaluate as you go along in your program.

As far as grass is concerned growing in shady areas, like under my Bradford Pears where I'm trying to get my fescue to grow, it's not going to need as much water as my sun bathed areas.

The exception, however, is grass growing right beneath a tree. Like right here with my Bradford Pears. In these areas, the lawn is competing with the tree roots for whatever available moisture is in the yard. So you might have to water these shady areas a little bit more frequently than the other spots in the yard.

So there we go! That's watering!

Just to circle back and hit a few of the key factors, if you've got a new lawn or your overseeding, you want to make it less and frequent. About 10 to 15 minutes a day, and then once it establishes itself, you can back that off and make it heavier and less frequent.

You want to try and get two inches of irrigation in the yard, and you can break that up to about twice a week, at an inch each time you water.

Don't forget about the Tuna Can Trick to help you measure out that one inch of water.

Watering the lawn is one of those things your either going to get right or your going to get wrong. If you over water, you risk a disease setting in, and if you under water, you risk it drying up and dying!

So much for that threat of rain, now it's all hot and humid and sunny outside! Welcome to Georgia!

I'm sure there's some other tips and tricks of things that I didn't cover in this video when it comes to how to water your lawn.

If you have any other questions, leave them in the comments section below, shoot our customer service staff an email, or give them a call!

I hope you enjoyed that video, I hope you learned somethings on how to water you lawn, and I also hope you enjoyed the little update that I did on where I'm at in my rehab program. The Poa Annua really died out from that last video, the application I did with the herbicide. I still got some other problems I got to tackle and I got a long ways to go, but I'm starting to see some results from everything I've done so far! I'm that much closer to having that big beautiful green luscious lawn I've always wanted!

Remember to click this button to subscribe to the channel, and click this playlist to see everything that we've done in the yard so far!

And as always, thanks for watching!