How Much Water

Does Your Lawn REALLY Need?

Too Much Water is Bad for Your Lawn!

Would you give the same amount of water to a fern as you would to a cactus? Grass, just like other plants, likes to have a certain amount of water. With too much water, the grass gets stressed and weak. The grass is more likely to get diseases or fungus, and become infested with harmful insects. Also, water-loving weeds like dollarweed start growing.

How Much Water is the Right Amount?

The University of Florida, Cooperative Extension Program has done research to find out the right amount of water for your lawn. They recommend ¾ to 1 ½ inches of water per week. Even in the hottest days of summer with no rain, your lawn doesn’t need any more than that. They also recommend watering twice a week.

If you wanted to water at the maximum recommended rate of 1 ½ inches per week, and you water twice a week, you would use ¾ inch each time you watered.

How to Be Smarter than your Sprinkler System!

It’s easy to figure out how to get your sprinkler system to put out ¾ inch of water.

1) Use a rain gauge, or use a ruler and any flat-bottomed container heavy enough that it won’t get knocked over by the water. You can use coffee mugs or tuna fish cans.

2) Put the rain gauge or other container out in the middle of the sprinkler spray area. Make sure to put it in the middle of the spray area of one spray head instead of at the edge. If there is more than one kind of spray head, test the kind that you have the most of that waters lawn. You can use more that one container if you want to be scientific.

3) Write down the time and start the sprinkler.

4) Check the water depth in the rain gauge or container every ten minutes or so until the sprinkler has watered ¾ inch of water.

5) Write down the ending time. Figure out how many minutes you should water.

6) If you have an automatic timer on your sprinkler, set the timer for that many minutes.

7) If you have an automatic timer with more than one zone, do this test for each zone.

Questions?

Visit our city webpage at www.myflorida.com/cape or call Public Works at (321) 868-1240. If you are happy with how much water you saved after testing your sprinkler system, let us know!