Watering lawns - how often?

If the current heatwave lasts for a while, how often is it advisable to water the lawn? I just bought a sprinkler and gave it a pretty good soaking yesterday, but I tend to be away during the week. Or is watering the lawn at all pretty much unnecessary as the grass will recover quickly once there is some rain?

 

If you have fine grasses in your lawn then it will need watering. If its tougher than that then it will be fine except for prolonged dry spells.

If you water it then give it a good drenching in the evening (so that the water doesn't evaporate in the heat of the day). Put a vertical-sided container on the lawn under the sprinkler and give the lawn at least an inch, and up to two inches. (That's a lot of water!) so that it will sink in through the turf, and then be available to the roots for the following week.

I just checked the Gardena web site for oscillating sprinklers, and they say their sprinklers will cover 250 sq.m. I doubt very much that my water pressure would drive them to cover that area but if they did 1" is 6.35 cubic meters of water - its about £1 / cu.m metered. My water pressure gives me about 2 gallons per minute, so an inch over that area would take me over 11 hours to deliver!

 

Many thanks - I'm glad we're not on a meter!

I got a rotating sprinkler (http://www.hozelock.com/watering/sprinklers/geardrive-sprinklers/aquastorm-360-sled.html) which covers all the lawn from four positions, and gave it an hour in each position, starting at 5pm yesterday. At the end everywhere seemed nicely damp, so hopefully that'll keep it all going (and growing) for the rest of this week...

 

"I'm glad we're not on a meter!"

Sorry, but I wish you were. Water Rates is dreadfully open to abuse ...

Top of the lawn feeling damp doesn't really tell you much about how much water got through. Might be worth making a little exploratory hole, and seeming that it is damp below the turf; better still putting some sort of container down next time you water so that you know how much you put on / hour, or somesuch, would be worth knowing.

 

Ah yes, the container idea sounds ideal, will do that next time.

Fair point about the meter, too, of course, although we're paying rates on a large property for just three of us, so what we gain on the swings we lose on the roundabouts.

 

It costs more than a £1 a cubic metre as the meter reading will be used to calclate the sewerage costs. Its more like £6 per cm.

It shouldn't be necessary to water your lawn unless you have a particular problem and we are not in a drought condition. Just cut your lawn a bit higher and cut it regularly, at least once a week. I would also cut down on the nitrogen and use a low nitrogen feed if its required.

Amanensia, you will be on a meter soon and you will save a lot of money.

 

"Fair point about the meter, too, of course, although we're paying rates on a large property for just three of us, so what we gain on the swings we lose on the roundabouts."

Sorry not intended to be a dig at you. I'm sure you are conscientious! But I don't see any incentive for folk on water rates to be prompt about fixing leaks, careful with usage, or (as we have done) putting clockwork timers on all outside taps so that nothing gets left on and accidentally forgotten.

Of course if noone abused the system it wouldn't be necessary ... and we wouldn't have any MPs either :D

"It costs more than a £1 a cubic metre as the meter reading will be used to calclate the sewerage costs"

Good point. Although we aren't on mains sewer ... so perhaps we pay nothing / not-very-much for sewerage pro-rata for water usage? (I don't know off hand).

I have been thinking for some time that we should replace our septic tank (or whatever it is) with a modern digester thingie so that the "processed" water would be suitable for irrigation. That would save quite a lot of water usage I reckon, and ditto any pro-rata'd sewerage rates (and I do resent putting carefully cleared, chlorinated, potable water on the lawn!)

But its a lot-of-wonga to replace the septic tank, so it's not top of the list at the moment.

 

I too would leave it- unless you are intending to give it a good drenching regularly, then a light sprinkle does more harm than good. The ( and I think it is the word-seen it bandied about so.......) roots are "adventitious"-in that they grow toward the water, and too little means they grow upwards-not desirable at all.


It's only grass.................(quickly dashes away).