Each time you water, you want to saturate the ground thoroughly without over-watering and creating run-off. It is best to water for extended periods of time, less frequently. This will allow the water penetrate deeply into the soil and promote deep root growth. With a deep root system, your lawn will be healthier and more drought tolerant. To accomplish this you need to consider the type of soil in your yard. Different soils soak up water at different rates.

 When setting the number of minutes to water each zone, keep in mind what you are trying to accomplish. We recommend, for every watering cycle, that you water:

• spray zones (heads that do not rotate) for 10-15 minutes at a time
• part circle rotor zones (rotate less than 360 degrees) 25-35 minutes
• full circle rotor zones (all heads on zone rotate 360 degrees) about 60 minutes
• For zones that have one full circle head, treat it like a part circle rotor zone

You may find that your lawn can handle more water at one time, which is better. If this is the case, then increase the zone times until you find the lawn’s saturation point. On the opposite side, you may find that it is too much water. Remember, you don’t have to put all of the water down at the same time. If your lawn needs time to soak up the water, you can schedule the timer to repeat a watering later in the same day (ex. 4am and again at 7am). Each watering will be half of the total desired time. Yards that are heavily sloped should be treated in special way as well. If water is applied too quickly, it will run-off before it can soak into the ground.

To accommodate these conditions, each zone should run for a short period of time (about one third of the total time desired) and be repeated three times, one after another. This will give the water time to percolate into the soil between waterings. Each lawn is different and can have multiple conditions (flat areas, shade, hills, clay soil, sandy soil etc.). The idea is to find a happy medium so that every area gets what it needs.

We recommend that you water your lawn early in the morning (3am- 8am) because it is the time of day with the coolest temperatures, the least amount of wind and no direct sunlight. Also, it reduces the risk of fungus problems. Once the lawn is watered, the sun will evaporate any remaining water. If you water at night, the water will lay on the grass for several hours creating fungus conditions.

The length of watering may cause problems with your daily water usage. Taking a shower, running the washing machine or dishwasher can have an affect on watering your lawn because of the extended time that the water is being used. This will lessen the spray of the sprinklers and affect the coverage of the lawn. Those of you with several zones (9 or more) will need to get more creative with your watering schedule because of long watering times. You may decide to water half of your yard early in the morning and half later in the morning. If you do not want the system to run during your morning routine, you can cut the zone times in half and have two start times, earlier and later in the morning, for example.

After you have programmed the zone run times, you need to add up the total amount of minutes the system will water. Once you have done this, it is time to figure out when you want the system to start watering. The biggest factors are township restrictions and personal water use in the morning. Some areas have high water pressure (above 70 PSI) and the effects on the system are small. Taking these factors into account, you have to decide how you want to program the start time(s).

To determine if enough water was put down, a good way to find out is to walk across your lawn. The ground should be firm, not too soft and not too hard. If the ground is really soft and mushy with bubbles coming up around your foot, then it is too much. The lawn will give you warning signs when it is thirsty. You may have noticed in the past that the grass was really green along the edge of a sidewalk or driveway and the rest of the grass wasn’t as green or as tall. This happens because water will run along the edge of the concrete when you wash a car, use your sprinklers or when water runs off from your neighbors house. The same thing happens around the sprinkler heads in the middle of your lawn. These areas are getting more water than the rest of your lawn.

If you notice the lawn does not need to be cut as often as it used to, then it usually means that the lawn is thirsty. Grass under stress will not grow as fast as healthy grass or sometimes it will stop growing altogether. When you walk across the lawn, if the blades of grass hold your footprints and do not spring back, you may need to water it more.

If these warning signs persist and you do not increase the amount of watering, your lawn will quickly turn brown. A lot of customers will tell us that their yard was green and then all of the sudden it turned brown. A healthy lawn can be cut as often as every five days. Once a lawn turns brown, it is very difficult to get the lawn back to green without the help of Mother Nature (rain and cooler temperatures). A good thing to do is to dig a small hole and scoop up some soil. Test the soil at different depths to see how far the water is percolating (6-12 inches is good). To test, squeeze the soil in your hand to see if it keeps its shape. If it does, then you have watered correctly. If it doesn’t, then there is not enough moisture to hold it together.

A common mistake is to assume a brown spot is a dry spot. Adding water to a problem area can make it worse – Fungus thrives off water. The easiest way to determine if a spot is dry is to test the soil for moisture. Dry soil will be hard and unable to hold shape. If the area is dry, test your sprinklers to see if all the heads are operating and adjusted properly. Sometimes plants will grow over a head and block the spray.

If water is not the issue, the problematic spot can also be created by:

• Fertilizer Burn or Pet Urine (will create a brown spot surrounded by very green grass)
• Motor oil or Gasoline (will not spread on lawn)
• Fungus (will spread and become weed infested if left untreated and will need to be restored)

Water is not the only important part of keeping your lawn healthy and green. Fertilizers and lime are also extremely important. Adding fertilizers to your lawn will strengthen the root system and provide nutrients which keep the grass greener. Remember that every time you fertilize you add acid to the soil while your lawn prefers it to be neutral. Lime your yard twice a year because it will keep your soil from becoming acidic.