With spring not yet here, this topic may seem a bit premature, but it is always useful to review lawn care tips, including how often you should be watering your lawn. And something to remember: those who live in warmer regions of the country are faced with this issue all year long.
Basically, there is no winning formula for how often you should be watering your lawn. Watering your lawn should not be viewed in the same way as mowing, and you don’t want to keep to a fixed watering schedule. Instead, the decision for when to mow your lawn should purely be based on the weather—just as the weather changes, so too does your lawn. Still, one of the most common mistakes committed by many lawn owners is that they water their lawn too often. You only want to water your lawn when the soil is dry or the grass is wilting. This may not happen for a month at a time and if so, this should not be cause for panic. However, while you don’t want to water very often, you should regularly be inspecting the grass and soil. One useful tip you can use in order to tell if it’s time for a watering, is to stick a knife into the soil; if the knife comes out clean, you know that it’s time to water the lawn.
When you do find that your lawn needs to be watered, make sure to hose it down thoroughly. Another mistake people make is to not apply enough water, which winds up having almost no effect. A good framework to use is to water at a rate of 1 inch per hour, dampening the soil to about 3-4 inches in total. It’s also important to remember that while one of the worst things you can do is not to water thoroughly, you also don’t want to water too heavily; make sure that there isn’t a layer of running water perched atop your lawn. Ultimately, watering is a relatively low-maintenance task, but you just need to strike the happy balance between under and over-watering.