Water, water, everywhere
Light, infrequent watering of the lawn only serves to encourage roots to stay near the surface leading to thin, unsightly grass. Continuous watering can also have a damaging effect, leading to disease. So what’s best if there is a prolonged dry period or even drought? Assuming there is no hosepipe ban (and we’ll talk more about that in a minute) what’s needed is thorough irrigation once or at most twice a week.
Your lawn grass comprises over 85% water, which means it needs irrigation to replenish, strengthen, and stay green. How long should you water? Run your sprinkler for about 20 to 30 minutes. Stop, let the water soak right in, then run the water for another 20 to 30 minutes. Multiply your lawn’s square footage by 0.62 gallons. This gives you one inch of water (25mm) per square foot once a week, which is usually what is needed.
One tip to measure the water flow is to place a jam jar where it will catch the water during your watering sessions and fill to one inch depth, although this does, of course, depend on the irrigation device you are using. If your lawn is looking a bit thin and weak at this time of the year, it may benefit from a very light dressing of fertilizer but ensure the ratios of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium are low. You want no more than 10% Nitrogen. You can use tomato or rose fertiliser as an inexpensive feed or a turf conditioner.
When it comes to mowing in long, dry spells, raise the mowing height on your mower or garden tractor to help prevent the lawn from drying out. Now, all that said, there are other schools of thought that say to conserve water, you should not water the lawn. If there is a hosepipe ban, you have no choice, and it is true, grass is very resilient and will grow back and green up when the rains come. It’s just rather unsightly having all those brown patches.
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